What's the process to find a place to live if I bring my family to Korea without command sponsorship? Will I get a housing allowance?

SOFA only applies to U.S. personnel on authorized military orders. In the case of a tour to Republic of Korea, if your command sponsorship (CSP) was approved, your family members would be added to your official PCS orders. Since your CSP was not approved (either due to the lack of EFMP support in the area or a non-dependent friendly duty location), you would have to bring your family over as tourists, which does not provide them SOFA protections and benefits. Without CSP approval, you cannot get any of the additional military benefits of having your family there with you.

Now of course, they can absolutely visit you as tourists for up to 90 days or less at a time, without a required tourism visa. So you would have to look at it from the perspective of them being visitors. 90-day visitors don't usually lease apartments, they rent hotel rooms, which means out-of-pocket expenses can become extreme over a longer stay. I believe since they are still military dependents, they can access the installation (upon proper registration in DBIDS) and receive limited healthcare, but I can't fully remember. The healthcare part is very important to consider. Find out what normal Tricare coverage they have as visitors to a foreign country.

Overall, it would be risky for you to try to bring them for a long-term stay as tourists, especially when considering Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO), which prioritizes registered and authorized family members for immediate evacuation in the event of escalating warfare. I would suggest planning periodic points throughout your tour to either fly home to see your family, or fly them to you in Korea for a short leave period (make sure your leave is actually approved, so you don't waste your money). Korea is a great experience for family members (depending on where you get stationed), and there is definite value in having them visit. I know the 188th MP Company is very busy though.

Reference: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/SouthKorea.html

If you take your family to Korea on-command sponsored, you will not receive any entitlements, you will not be able to live off post, your family won’t have any medical or dental coverage. They will not have access to the base, the commissary or any of the military facilities. You won’t get OHA either or anything for utilities.

Bringing your family non-command sponsored is putting them in a horrible situation, not to mention you will be subject to UMCJ if your command finds out you screwed your family that way.

If the army says no you can’t bring them and you do it anyway, then you’re setting yourself up for serious consequences not to mention it’s very expensive with no entitlements and you won’t be able to reside with them. I highly suggest you rethink that decision, they won’t get a SOFA visa because the command sponsor was denied. I promise you, once you make that decision, you’re saying you are prepared to deal with whatever consequences that come your way.

You will not get a housing allowance for Korea. You will get the housing allowance for the supposed CONUS zipcode where your family supposed to reside, likely the last duty station. I don't know how it is in Korea nowadays, but when I was there. We were on lockdown most of the time due to North Korea, anti-American protest, and China. Especially now with COVID-19, Are you sure that is what you want your family to deal with? You will have to live on the local economy without official protection from the command. ... I remember when 9/11 was happening. We were recalled back to work. The bases in Germany were on lockdown. Many of the families live outside the base because there were not enough on-base housing, we were expecting more attack and wait for another shoe to drop. In the meantime, my wife and daughter were at home alone while I was on base waiting for what was next. Even with command sponsored my wife and daughter were left to wait not knowing what was going on. If there were another attack like how the extremists were hoping that Muslim men should do, what will you choose? Your duty or your family? Unlike back in the Cold War, there were no training or drill for civilian evacuation or periodic seminar on what to do in case of emergency.

The band of Thieve has a saying, "Men fight harder to protect their loved ones." That is if they are where you can protect them, of course. My saying is, "I fight harder if the monster I am fighting with cannot reach my loved ones."

My advice, "Leave them in the States. They can be with your relative. It is better to know that they are where they can take care of themselves, though other cons come into the picture, than having them there with you, especially with COVID-19. They would likely be ostracized by the Korean community and isolated from the base community.

Military service is about sacrifice. We answer the call of duty while foregoes what we want to have. I wish you luck for whichever hell you are choosing.

Don’t do it. If your wife is Korean, fluent in the language, knows local customs and laws, and has taught your kids Korean then maybe. It will be expensive and leading a double life will be challenging for you and could ruin your career.

SSG(P) (Join to see), you're the only one we havent heard from since your original question. It looks like all the experts (currently serving) and others are all advising against it. I'm sure you're busy now but I hope you take their advice.

Way to be thorough Sgt. LaCroix

I guess that I am assuming you are doing an “unaccompanied tour”. That used to mean that you didn’t bring your family. So I am assuming you would be eligible for exactly nothing, because they told you to have them stay at home. I am also thinking that if you go against that, you are setting yourself and your family up for failure. (And that isn’t meant to be a smart alecky comment).
I would consider going unaccompanied, and meeting back with them when you’re done.
Other thought-can you ask for a longer, “accompanied tour”? Seems like they might like having an NCO for 3 yrs vs 1?