Noem faces scrutiny over rent-free military home

A top member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet has quietly been living — for free — in a spacious waterfront residence on a military base, sparking controversy over the unprecedented housing arrangement, Knewz.com can report. An investigation has confirmed that in recent months, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem moved into a property known as Quarters 1 — which is traditionally the home of the Coast Guard’s top admiral — at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington.

Unorthodox living arrangement

An official familiar with the situation confirmed to The Washington Post that Noem — who makes more than $200,000 a year as Department of Homeland Security secretary and has an estimated net worth of $5 million — is not paying rent to reside in the Coast Guard commandant’s house. The Post described the arrangement as “highly unusual” and “unorthodox.” Quarters 1 was vacant — until Noem moved in — following the Trump administration’s decision to fire four-star Admiral Linda Fagan, the first female commandant of the Coast Guard, in January. Fagan was evicted from her home with three hours’ notice, NBC News reported.

The controversy

Critics — including unnamed current and retired Coast Guard officials and some Democrats — have expressed concern that Noem, who supervises the Coast Guard in her role as DHS secretary and has also faced scrutiny in recent months for her work overseeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation raids, could be seen as exploiting her position. Limited housing on the base means Noem’s arrangement could impact senior military officials. A source familiar with Coast Guard housing policy told The Post that previous commandants paid to lease their quarters.

Unprecedented situation

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, who served under President Barack Obama, shared concerns about “the message” Noem’s rent-free arrangement “sends down the line in the career military community.” According to Johnson, no DHS secretary has previously resided in government housing until now. “Most likely, if a Cabinet secretary takes a government house, there’s a chain reaction and people very senior are getting displaced,” he told The Post. While some defense secretaries have resided in military housing, including current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, there is a federal law that allows them the perk, though they must pay for it. There is no law addressing the issue for other Cabinet secretaries, according to The Post.

Noem’s explanation

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told The Post that Noem moved into the commandant’s residence, which she said was temporary, due to safety concerns following an April report in Britain’s Daily Mail that included photos of the area near the former South Dakota governor’s rented apartment in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood. “[The] need for heightened security for Secretary Noem should make sense, even to a reporter, given she has DHS going after the worst of the worst. That includes hundreds if not thousands of members of international cartels and terrorist organizations,” McLaughlin said in a statement. McLaughlin further told The Post that Noem was “so horribly doxxed and targeted that she is no longer able to safely live in her own apartment” and that it was “sad” for a Post reporter to “suggest a rancher should have to pay a second rent because of a reporter’s irresponsible decisions to dox where she lives.” She added, “If you cannot find humanity in another human’s safety and security, I invite you to find it here,” and offered a link to Washington National Cathedral.

Criticism from a top Democrat

The commandant’s house is “not a vanity residence” and Noem is “essentially taking that property from the military,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, told The Post. “It’s a real insult to the brave men and women who are protecting our shores that she thinks that house belongs to her instead of to the Coast Guard,” the senator said.

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