Evictions and the Pandemic

As COVID-19 swept the country in 2020, millions of people in the U.S. were out of work and at risk of being evicted. An unprecedented federal ban on evictions and billions of dollars in rental assistance helped keep people in their homes — but some people were still evicted. In FRONTLINE and Retro Report’s documentary “Facing Eviction,” director Bonnie Bertram and a team of filmmakers from across the country examined why — finding that the effectiveness of pandemic housing protections depended almost entirely on how local officials enforced them. Bertram joined FRONTLINE editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath for a conversation about where tenant protections stand now, the process of making “Facing Eviction” and filming with people on the brink of losing their housing. “We started to chronicle these people's lives and, as the months unfolded, saw the desperation and just the precariousness of their situation and this dreaded knock on the door that impacts all parts of their life,” Bertram told Aronson-Rath. Facing Eviction is now streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS Video App, and FRONTLINE’s Youtube channel.

Om Podcasten

An award-winning, original, investigative series made by the team behind the acclaimed PBS documentary show, FRONTLINE. From the long and deadly arm of 9/11, to a police shooting in West Virginia with a startling twist, to what life is really like for children living in a Kenyan refugee camp, each episode follows a different reporter through an investigation that sometimes is years in the making. The FRONTLINE Dispatch – because some stories are meant to be heard. Produced at FRONTLINE’s headquarters at WGBH in Boston and powered by PRX. The FRONTLINE Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation Journalism Initiative.