Fired but Not Evicted: Kristi Noem Is Still Living in the Coast Guard Home Your Taxes Pay For

April 24, 2026

Kristi Noem was fired as Secretary of Homeland Security on March 5, 2026. Seven weeks later, she is still living in a waterfront military residence at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C. -- a home designated for the commandant of the Coast Guard, paid for by American taxpayers, and never meant for her to keep.

Sources familiar with the property told reporters this week that a black SUV associated with Noem was spotted outside the residence. U.S. Coast Guard officials have also seen Noem on the base in recent days. She has not moved out. She has not been made to.

A Home She Should Have Vacated Months Ago

The residence Noem occupies sits at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, a military installation in Washington, D.C. The housing unit is typically designated for the commandant of the Coast Guard -- not for a fired Cabinet secretary who no longer holds any position at DHS. That slot opened up after Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan in 2025.

Noem moved in when she became DHS Secretary, claiming it was a security measure. She told reporters at the time that she was paying the government to rent the home. DHS officials said she was paying "fair market value." No documentation of any payment was ever produced. And now, even the fig leaf of a "security measure" is gone: she has no department, no agency, no operational reason to be there.

Her new title -- Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas -- is a State Department post that carries zero entitlement to Coast Guard housing. The home belongs to the military. The Coast Guard needs it for its commandant. Noem is a squatter with a government credential and a view of the river.

Corey Lewandowski Is Also Showing Up

There is a second detail that makes this worse. According to reporting from Morning Honey, Corey Lewandowski -- Noem's former top aide at DHS, who has also left the department -- has been spotted at the residence as recently as this month. Lewandowski and Noem have faced accusations of an extramarital affair for over a year, allegations both have denied.

What is not in dispute: a man with no current government role is being seen at a taxpayer-funded military residence occupied by a woman who was fired seven weeks ago. Whatever the personal relationship, the operational picture is clear. This home is being used by people who have no claim to it.

The Hearing That Got Her Fired

Noem did not go quietly before her dismissal. In congressional testimony in March 2026, she was grilled over a $220 million TV ad campaign about deportations in which she appeared on horseback in front of Mount Rushmore -- a taxpayer-funded vanity project that senators and representatives from both parties found indefensible. She was fired days later.

Senator Richard Blumenthal had already called her out months earlier, slamming her for living rent-free in the prestigious waterfront housing and calling for an oversight hearing. Blumenthal described the arrangement as "an egregious abuse of military housing reserved for Coast Guard leadership." The oversight hearing never happened before she was fired. And now that she is fired, the abuse continues.

Why This Matters

The Noem housing situation is a clean, specific case study in how the Trump administration treats government resources: they are perks for the loyal, available for as long as loyalty lasts, and apparently non-revocable even after that loyalty runs out. Noem rode hard for Trump -- the $220 million ad campaign, the deportation theater, the public statements -- and she got fired anyway. But she kept the house.

There is no mechanism forcing her out. No one in the Trump administration has publicly demanded she vacate. The Coast Guard, whose commandant Trump fired to free up this housing, cannot get its own home back. And the taxpayers who pay for this military base have no recourse.

The "best people" promised by Trump in 2016 and again in 2024 have a pattern: they resign under pressure, get fired for incompetence or scandal, and then linger on the public dime while the next appointee walks into the same mess. Noem is not exceptional in this administration. She is the template.

A fired Cabinet secretary is occupying military housing with no legal basis for doing so, while an ex-aide with no government role has been seen coming and going from the property. The administration that promised to drain the swamp built a private beach house in it instead -- and stuck you with the bill.