Monday, December 29, 2025, episode of the podcast The Excerpt: For a year, USA TODAY columnist Suzette Hackney followed people whose lives had been changed by evacuation. She explains why losing a home is so much more important than losing a roof over your head, and how race, policy, and power determine who gets left behind.
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Dana Taylor:
For most of us, home is an intricate part of our identity and a source of safety, memory, and stability. So what happens when the place that defines you is taken away? Hello. Welcome to this excerpt from USA TODAY. I’m Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, December 29, 2025. As we’ve seen across the country this past year, housing affordability is currently in crisis, especially for Millennials and Gen Z. For the past year, USA TODAY national columnist Suzette Hackney has explored what home really means, following people whose lives have been reshaped by displacement due to climate change, storms, tribal politics and more. Through telling these stories, she realized that home is not just a physical space, but a sense of belonging, stability, and the foundation of life. Suzette, thank you so much for coming back to The Excerpt.
Suzette Hackney:
Hello, Danna. Thank you so much for having me.
Dana Taylor:
You have reported on people who have lost their homes for a variety of reasons, including evacuation, expulsion from school, natural disasters, and economic pressures. Having spent a year on this project, what do you think home actually means to people?
Suzette Hackney:
Home is what you make and it means a lot to a lot of people, if it means being with your family, if it means having an affordable price, if it means having a place you want to explore or a place you never had the chance to live. One of the reasons I wanted to try this project was because I was actually living in Los Angeles last year. I was renting and my landlord wanted to sell the property. And suddenly I had no home. And I have the means, the resources, etc. to be able to jump off of that. But it was a really difficult time for me. It seemed like an unexpected event. That was something I hadn’t planned on. I hadn’t yet thought about where I would move next. I was very happy there. So it really got me thinking about how this aspect of the home can change in an instant for so many people.
Dana Taylor:
Throughout these stories, the loss of home is never just about structures. It is about identity, memory and belonging. Why is home so tied to our identity?
Suzette Hackney:
One of the things that happened when I started writing this was I started thinking about my childhood home and what it represented to me, from Big Mama to my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, and uncles who I lived with. We had a slightly unusual house structure. My mother and father were divorced. I realized how important it was for me to grow up in that environment and be able to learn how to garden and plant trees in the backyard with my grandmother. These are things that will stay with you even after many years. So I’ve been interviewing all of these people and talking about their memories and experiences, and it’s been really powerful.
Dana Taylor:
Suzette, many of the people you profiled have had their homes taken from them through systems and agencies ranging from tribal councils to school districts to federal disaster response. What patterns have you seen in how the powers that be decide who can protect the home?
Suzette Hackney:
Well, as you said, there’s a problem with the structure. So one of the first columns I wrote was about tribal councils deciding to expel people because they didn’t think they were Nooksacks. They didn’t deserve to be nooksacks. And another story column I wrote in Renton, Washington, was actually about a man whose father was illiterate and had little education, but who worked with his family to buy a house and, after receiving a prominent land threat, finally made a deal. So you look at these structures, you look at these people who have lost so much, they have lost their identity, and you think, “How could something like this happen?” But it happens really easily.
Dana Taylor:
Race and affiliation come up multiple times in the series. What do these stories tell us about how race shapes housing safety, access, and evictions in America?
Suzette Hackney:
Bruce Beach is probably the most popular and the beach best known for the family that literally owned all of this beautiful oceanfront property in California. And it was taken away from them. And their ancestors did not understand at the time what they were giving up. This problem arises especially when we focus on race and generational wealth. This is how black, brown, and Asian people typically acquire intergenerational wealth through owning property, owning a home, and passing it on from generation to generation. And that’s being taken away in a big way, and that’s systemic racism. That’s exactly what we’re thinking. This happens less often to white people. It happens to us too.
Dana Taylor:
In some of your works, you focus on communities that come together, sometimes across borders, to support people who have been forced to flee their homes. What have you learned about resilience and how people rebuild their homes after losing their homes?
Suzette Hackney:
One of the columns you talk about is Nooksack, where the Canadian tribes actually said, “We’re not going to make you homeless. We’ve got the money. We’ve got the resources. We’re going to build a new community for you. We’re going to build a new area for you, especially a new area where all these elders can settle.” And that was very moving to me. I still feel that strongly when I interviewed tribal officials in Canada and said, “These are our elders. These are the people who raised us, taught us, and did everything for us. Why would we make them homeless at this point in their lives?” It was so powerful to see people stand up and help those in need through systemic racism and unfair structures. And frankly, we need more of that in this country right now.
Dana Taylor:
And in one story, you followed people who actively chose to build a new home overseas. I am, of course, referring to black American women who immigrated to Mexico City. Please tell me about that story. What drives them to seek new lives south of the border?
Suzette Hackney:
There are a few things. So I interviewed about 10 black American women who had settled and immigrated to Mexico City, and they were very aware of the fact that they were immigrants. And this is not their home country. I feel very welcome, but I was wondering if I could do that first. COVID-19 opened borders and allowed people to realize for the first time, “I don’t have to sit in this office to work. I can work from anywhere, this country, this city. I can move closer to my mom.” So some of that is what the pandemic has brought to us as professionals, but these are also women who are raising children and who have been thinking about medical procedures and the affordability of health care. These are women who are especially thinking about the safety of their sons and feeling like, “I don’t know if my son is going to be okay after an encounter with a police officer in the United States.”
These are women who have just made up their minds. Some of the women have retired, while others have always said, “I’ve always wanted to live overseas.I never had the opportunity to do so before, but now I want to.” There are countless reasons why they made their decisions. Mexico City is truly a dynamic city. I had never been there before, so this was my first time interviewing there, and I understood its charm. I mean, it’s definitely a place full of love. People are very welcoming and kind. There is diversity everywhere. Parks and green spaces are really important in Mexico City. If you can walk, you don’t need a car. There are a lot of things that I really like, and some are reasonably priced. Some of the places these women live in, like Mexico City, they can’t afford to live in, say, New York City.
Dana Taylor:
It’s one of my favorite cities. I could talk a little bit about that. So how are President Trump’s anti-immigrant policies playing out here?
Suzette Hackney:
I talked to them a lot about it. There’s a huge level of frustration among them because it’s the exact opposite of what’s happening here in the United States. So they look back at their hometowns and see people being dragged out of their cars, businesses, homes, etc. because they look a certain way. However, they were still able to move to Mexico City and have felt nothing but love, support and kindness. So these women are angry about that. When they watch the news and see what’s happening in their hometown, they get angry, especially since they’re in a place where they feel so loved.
Dana Taylor:
Suzette, after a year of reporting on what home means, what do you think we often misunderstand about housing, belonging and the fragility of a sense of being rooted? And what do you hope readers take away from your amazing series?
Suzette Hackney:
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think we realize and a lot of people don’t realize that one day everything could change. You might wake up every day and get a phone call and your landlord might say, “We want to sell you,” or “We want you to move out, and we want to give you six weeks.” There were six weeks until the really important presidential election. I’ve been writing about this kind of thing and how difficult it is for decades. When I was a columnist for the Indianapolis Star, I remember getting a call from a homeless woman who had been kicked out of her home, was facing eviction, had children, and didn’t know where to go. And it was in the middle of winter, and she called me. This is what I thought. “I don’t know how to help you, but I’ve spent days, weeks, and months trying to help her navigate this system.” The systems in place are good, but the shelters can get full, especially in the winter.
In some cases, there are many mental health issues and such people don’t even realize how much trauma they are going through and how they need help. So it really speaks to who we are as people, what we’re willing to do for people. Look at the natural disasters, the fires, all the other things and, frankly, people who have lost their SNAP benefits. When you look at all of this, you can see how many people were willing to volunteer and try to solve it. And that’s what we all have to do for each other.
Dana Taylor:
Suzette Hackney is a national columnist for USA TODAY. Suzette, thank you so much for sharing your report with The Excerpt.
Suzette Hackney:
Thank you, Danna.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to Senior Producer Kayleigh Monaghan for her production assistance, Executive Producer will be Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think about this episode by sending a note to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thank you for your attention. I’m Dana Taylor. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be back with another episode of USA TODAY Excerpts.
