Alexys Hatcher lost her job when the shoe store she managed closed during the pandemic.
After falling behind on rent, Hatcher arrived home to Arlington in April 2021 to find a notice on the front door. She had 24 hours to vacate the home she shared with her 5-year-old daughter.
Hatcher and her daughter are now featured in a new PBS Frontline documentary, Facing Eviction, that premiered July 26.
Filmed over more than a year, the documentary examines how a federal eviction moratorium and a massive rent-relief program played out in the lives of people across the country.
The documentary reveals that the effectiveness of those temporary pandemic housing protections ultimately depended on how state and local officials interpreted and enforced them, according to PBS.
“Hatcher’s is a case in point,” says PBS’s Frontline.
Hatcher was one of the first people evicted after the Texas Supreme Court began allowing evictions to move forward.
The family moved all of their belongings, including a dollhouse and a pink polka dot toy car with Minnie Mouse on its door, into a UHaul. They spent their first night after being evicted at Hatcher’s grandmother’s house.
An excerpt from the documentary shows Hatcher making repeated phone calls looking for a place to live while her daughter plays in the background.
“Even though she knows we’re not going back there, she doesn’t know we don’t have a home because to her … wherever I am is her home,” Hatcher said.
