Malmstrom, Minuteman, and What SCRA Means for Great Falls Landlords
Great Falls sits at the confluence of the Missouri River and the Sun River on Montana’s high plains, and its position on the edge of the plains’ vast horizons gives the city a character that is simultaneously open and isolated — a city of modest size that serves an immense rural hinterland. The Missouri River cascades through a series of falls and rapids within the city that Lewis and Clark spent eleven days portaging around in 1805, and those falls powered the copper smelting operations that made Great Falls an industrial center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today the economy runs on different pillars, but the sense of a working city with genuine industrial and military purpose persists.
Malmstrom Air Force Base was established in 1942 and has been the home of intercontinental ballistic missile operations since the early 1960s. Today Malmstrom’s 341st Missile Wing operates and maintains Minuteman III missiles in approximately 150 launch facilities scattered across a 13,800-square-mile area of north-central Montana — one of the largest military land areas in the United States in terms of the operational footprint the base must maintain. The base employs roughly 3,500 active-duty military personnel and a significant civilian contractor workforce, making it the single largest employment driver in Great Falls and the anchor of Cascade County’s rental market.
SCRA Explained for Montana Landlords
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is a federal statute that provides a range of legal protections to active-duty military personnel, and its housing provisions are the ones Great Falls landlords most need to understand. The most important is the right to early lease termination: a servicemember who receives permanent change of station (PCS) orders or deployment orders for 90 days or more may terminate any residential lease by providing written notice and a copy of the orders. The termination becomes effective 30 days after the next rent payment due date following notice delivery. This provision cannot be waived by lease contract — any lease clause purporting to eliminate or limit SCRA termination rights is unenforceable. Landlords may not charge early termination fees, retain security deposits as compensation for early departure, or report early SCRA termination to credit bureaus in a derogatory way.
The SCRA also limits eviction of servicemembers in some circumstances, particularly if the monthly rent is below a statutory threshold that is adjusted periodically. Landlords who receive an appearance from a service member’s commanding officer or legal counsel in connection with an eviction proceeding should treat this as a signal to consult their own attorney before proceeding.
None of this should deter Great Falls landlords from renting to Malmstrom personnel. Military tenants are among the most reliable and stable in any rental market: federal income guaranteed by congressional appropriations, biweekly payment, BAH sized to local market rates, and a population that tends to treat rental property with the discipline that military service instills. The SCRA provisions require accommodation and planning, but they are not a source of financial loss for landlords who structure their leases appropriately and build their business model around the military assignment cycle rather than fighting it.
BAH: Understanding Military Housing Allowance Income
Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is a tax-free cash payment that active-duty military personnel use to pay for off-base housing. BAH rates are calculated by the Department of Defense based on local rental market data, the servicemember’s pay grade (rank), and whether they have dependents. Great Falls BAH rates are set to cover the local median rental cost for each rank tier, which means that a servicemember’s BAH is specifically sized to be adequate for the Great Falls market at their rank. A junior enlisted airman with dependents receives enough BAH to cover a modest family rental in Great Falls; a senior noncommissioned officer or officer receives substantially more.
Because BAH is not reported as taxable income on a W-2, it does not appear in income documentation the way salary does. Landlords should ask military applicants for their Leave and Earnings Statement (LES), which shows base pay, BAH, and all other compensation components. Total LES income is the appropriate figure for income-to-rent threshold calculations. At Great Falls rent levels, most active-duty personnel with dependent BAH rates will satisfy standard income thresholds comfortably.
Benefis Health System and the Civilian Professional Tier
Benefis Health System is Great Falls’s regional hospital, providing tertiary care services to north-central Montana and employing physicians, nurses, technicians, and administrators who represent the same healthcare employment stability that appears as a reliable anchor in every market throughout this series. Benefis employees form Great Falls’s most stable civilian professional tenant segment — year-round employment, income levels that comfortably support current Great Falls market rents, and long-term employment tenure that is characteristic of regional healthcare institutions. Great Falls Public Schools, Montana State University-Great Falls, and state and county government employment add further layers of civilian professional stability.
Agriculture and the Regional Economy
Great Falls is the commercial hub for one of the most productive dryland wheat-farming regions in the United States. The Golden Triangle — the area roughly bounded by Great Falls, Havre, and Cut Bank — produces spring wheat that is among the highest-protein wheat grown anywhere in North America, prized by flour millers and pasta manufacturers worldwide. Farm operators, agricultural equipment dealers, commodity traders, and the network of businesses that serve the agricultural economy contribute to Great Falls’s economic base in ways that are less visible than Malmstrom but equally foundational. Farm operation income is highly cyclical and weather-dependent — agricultural applicants in Great Falls merit the same base-income-vs.-variable-income screening discipline applied throughout this series to agricultural counties.
Cascade County landlord-tenant matters are governed by the Montana Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1977, MCA Title 70, Chapter 24, and the Montana Tenants’ Security Deposits Act, MCA Title 70, Chapter 25. Federal overlay: the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) provides active-duty military tenants with the right to early lease termination upon PCS or qualifying deployment orders; this right cannot be waived by lease provision. Nonpayment notice: 3-day pay or vacate. Minor lease violation: 14-day cure or quit. Major lease violation: 3-day cure or quit. No-cause termination (month-to-month): 30-day written notice. Security deposit: no cap; 10-day return if no deductions, 30-day itemized return if deductions; must be held in separate bank account; bank name and address provided to tenant; 24-hour written cleaning notice required before deducting cleaning charges (MCA § 70-25-201(3)); SCRA prohibits retaining deposit solely due to SCRA early termination. Landlord entry: 24 hours’ advance written notice (MCA § 70-24-312). No rent control. No local ordinances beyond state law. FED action filed at Cascade County Justice Court. Federal lead paint disclosure required for pre-1978 properties. Consult a licensed Montana attorney before taking legal action or adverse action against a servicemember tenant. Last updated: April 2026.
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