What home means to people whose lives were reshaped by displacement | The Excerpt
- - What home means to people whose lives were reshaped by displacement | The Excerpt
Dana Taylor, USA TODAY December 29, 2025 at 7:41 PM
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On the Monday, December 29 2025, episode of The Excerpt podcast: For a year, USA TODAY columnist Suzette Hackney followed people whose lives were reshaped by displacement. She explains why losing a home is about far more than losing a roof and how race, policy and power determine who gets left behind.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
For most of us, home is an intricate part of our identity, a source of safety, memory, and stability. So what happens when the place that defines you is taken away? Hello, and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, December 29th, 2025. As we've seen across the country this past year, housing affordability is in crisis right now, particularly for millennials and Gen Z. For the past year, USA TODAY National Columnist, Suzette Hackney has been exploring what home really means by following people whose lives were reshaped by displacement, whether by climate change, fueled superstorms or tribal politics. Through the telling of these stories, she found that home is never just a physical space, it's belonging, stability, the foundation of life. Suzette, thank you so much for coming back on The Excerpt.
Suzette Hackney:
Hi, Dana. Thank you so much for having me.
Dana Taylor:
You've reported on people losing homes for very different reasons, displacement, disenrollment, natural disaster, economic pressure. After spending a year on this project, what do you think home really means to people?
Suzette Hackney:
Home is what you make of it, and so if that means being with family, if that means having affordability, a place that they want to explore or live that they haven't had the opportunity to do so, home means a lot of things to a lot of people. One of the reasons I decided to take on this project is because I was living in Los Angeles actually last year. I was renting and my landlord decided that he wanted to sell the property. And so, all of a sudden I was without a home. And I have the means and resources and such to be able to jump from that. But it was a really difficult time for me. It was like something unexpected. It was something that I had not planned for. I had not tried to figure out where I was going to move next. I was very happy there. And so, it just really got me thinking about how this aspect of home for so many people can change in a flash.
Dana Taylor:
Across these stories, the loss of a home is never just about a structure. It's about identity, memory, it's about belonging. Why is home so tied to our identities?
Suzette Hackney:
One of the things when I started writing this, I just started thinking about my childhood home and what that represented to me from my big mama, my grandmother living with us, to my mom and my aunt and my uncle. We had kind of a different home structure. My mom and dad were divorced and how important it felt to me to be raised in that environment and be able to learn how to garden with my grandmother and plant trees in the backyard with her. These are things that stick with you all of these years later. And so as I've been interviewing all of these people and talking about their memories, their experiences, it's been really powerful.
Dana Taylor:
Suzette, many of the people you profiled had their homes taken through systems or institutions from tribal councils to school districts, to federal disaster responses. What patterns did you see in how power determines who gets to keep their home?
Suzette Hackney:
Well, there's a lot of, like you said, it's the structure. And so, one of the first columns that I wrote was about a tribal council that decided that they were going to disenroll people because they thought that they were not Nooksack. They did not have the validity to be Nooksack. And another story column I did in Renton, Washington was actually about a man whose father, who was illiterate, had very little education, but had worked with his family to buy a home and ended up signing it over after the threat of eminent domain. And so, you look at these structures and you look at these people who have lost so much and lost their identities and you think, "How does this happen?" But it happens really easily.
Dana Taylor:
Race and belonging show up again and again in your series. What did these stories reveal to you about how race shapes housing security, access, and displacement in America?
Suzette Hackney:
Bruce's Beach is probably the one that is most popular, the one that's known the most about a family who literally owned all this beautiful beachfront property in California. And it was taken from them. And their ancestors didn't understand what they were giving up at the time. There is such an issue when you look at race in particular and you look at generational wealth. This is how black people, brown people, Asians, this is how you acquire generational wealth is through typically owning property, owning a home, passing it down from generation to generation to generation. And that's being taken away a lot and it's systemic racism. It is exactly what we think it is. This doesn't happen as much to white people. It happens to us.
Dana Taylor:
In several pieces, you highlight communities that came together sometimes across borders to support people after they've been uprooted. What did you learn about resilience and the ways people rebuild home after losing it?
Suzette Hackney:
The one column you're talking about is Nooksack and how a Canadian tribe actually said, "We're not going to let you guys be homeless. We have money. We have resources. We're going to build a new community for you. We're going to build a new area where all of these elders in particular can settle." And that was so moving to me. I still feel it really strongly when I was interviewing the Canadian tribal officials and them talking about, "These are our elders. These are the people who raised us, who taught us, who have done everything for us. Why would we let them be homeless at this point in their lives?" It was just so powerful how through all of the systemic racism and structures that are unfair, people will stand up and people will help those in need. And frankly, we need more of that in this country right now.
Dana Taylor:
And for one story, you followed people who actively chose to create a new home abroad. Of course, I'm referring to the black American women who moved to Mexico City. Tell me about that story. What's driving these women to seek a new life south of the border?
Suzette Hackney:
There are a few things. So, I interviewed about 10 black American women who have settled in Mexico City and immigrated, and they're very clear about the fact that they're immigrants. And this is not their home country. They feel very welcomed, but there were things like, first of all, it was just the ability to do so. COVID opened the borders and it allowed people for the first time to realize, "I don't have to sit in this office to work. I can work from here or there or this country or this city or move closer to my mom." So, some of it was just what the pandemic did for us as professionals, but also these are women who have thought about... They're raising kids, some of them, and they've thought about the affordability of medical procedures and healthcare. These are women who have thought about the safety, particularly of their sons and feeling like, "I don't know if my son would be okay in the United States having a certain encounter with a police officer."
These are women who have just decided... Some of them are retired and some of them always said, "I wanted to live abroad. I never got the opportunity to do so, but I want to now." There's just a myriad reasons why they have decided. In Mexico City, I mean, it's just a dynamic city. I had never been there before, so my first time there was reporting this story and I see the appeal. I mean, it's definitely a loving place. The people are so welcoming and kind. There's diversity everywhere. Parks, green space is really important in Mexico City. The ability to walk, you don't have to have a car. There are just a lot of things to really like and the affordability as well. Some of these places where these women live, they could not afford to live in, let's say, New York City the same way that they are in Mexico City.
Dana Taylor:
It's one of my favorite cities. I could just talk to you about that. So, how are Trump's anti-immigration policies playing out here?
Suzette Hackney:
I spoke with them a lot about that. There's a huge level of frustration among them because they're the opposite of what's happening here in the United States. So, they're looking back home and they're seeing people being pulled out of cars and businesses and homes and such because they look a certain way. But yet these women have been able to immigrate to Mexico City and have felt nothing but love and support and kindness. And so, these women are angry about that. They're angry when they watch the news and they see what's happening back home, especially because they're in a place where they feel so loved.
Dana Taylor:
Suzette, after spending a year reporting on what home means, what do you think we often misunderstand about housing, belonging, and the fragility of feeling rooted? And what do you hope readers carry forward with from your incredible series?
Suzette Hackney:
Yeah, I mean, I think that we don't realize, a lot of people don't realize that any day it can all change. Any day you could wake up and get a call and your landlord says, "I want to sell," or, "I need you to move out and I want to give you six weeks to do it." I had six weeks leading up to a really important presidential election. I've written about this kind of thing for decades and how difficult it is. I remember when I was a columnist at The Indianapolis Star, I got a call from a woman who was homeless and had been kicked out and evicted and had kids and had no idea where to go. And it was in the middle of winter and she called me. I was like, "I don't know how to help you, but I spent days and weeks and months trying to help her navigate the system." The systems in place are great, but sometimes shelters are full, particularly in winter.
Sometimes there are lots of mental health issues, and these people don't even recognize how much trauma they are experiencing and how they need help. And so, it really just speaks to our humanity, what we're willing to do for people. You look at the natural disasters, the fires, all of those things, and frankly, the people who lost their SNAP benefits, right? You look at all of that and you see how many people were willing to volunteer and help and try to figure it out. And that's what we all need to be doing for each other.
Dana Taylor:
Suzette Hackney is a National Columnist for USA TODAY. Suzette, thank you so much for sharing your reporting here on The Excerpt.
Suzette Hackney:
Thank you, Dana.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan for her production assistance, our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How does race, power and policy shape who gets displaced in America? | The Excerpt
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