Student Story: Children in Eviction Should Not be Scared

Story by Giovanni Delgadillo, Katie Biggar and Elizabeth Bulot. University of North Texas. Fall 2022.

Story by Giovanni Delgadillo, Katie Biggar and Elizabeth Bulot. University of North Texas. Fall 2022.

Lacee Howard squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the tears that had formed behind her mascara. At 20, she still remembers the time she and her family were first evicted. She was 14 and when she arrived home from school she saw a yellow piece of paper plastered on the front door of her home.

“The rent was raised on the house without our knowledge — we had no idea where we were going,” Howard said. “The night that we got the notice was the same night we packed our bags and left to live with my mom’s friend. This was my first time couch surfing.”

She didn’t understand what was happening but she understood that she and her family were losing their home right then.