Today, in our series on the unhoused in the media, we are going to take a deep dive into the 2021 Netflix limited series Maid. The show opens: it’s the middle of the night, with a mother lifting her sleeping toddler out of a bed in their home. Broken glass litters the kitchen floor from earlier that evening. Silently, the woman carries her daughter out to a barely running car, drives to a ferry landing, and parks. The moment is tense, then a number appears on the screen; this financial ledger will carry through the series. She starts with $18. Her name is Alex, her daughter is Maddy, and the story of Maid follows them as they flee domestic violence while working desperately for a better life.
Maid debuted in 2021 and is one of the most realistic portrayals of being unhoused, navigating the system, and showing the real-life challenges that those who are surviving domestic violence face. This series also did something very important: it didn’t show audiences the picture of an unhoused person that they’d been trained to see in media, a single man on a bench. Instead, we see a mother in a Subaru rebuild her life and navigate a system that, although it’s there for her and her daughter, is exceptionally unforgiving at times.
This Looks Different
When most people are asked to describe an unhoused individual, they typically picture a middle-aged man, alone, living outside. In a 2019 research study at the American University’s Center for Media and Social Impact, they found that out of 150 watched episodes of the fifty most-watched shows on American television, more than 80% of the unhoused characters appeared in a single episode with little or no dialogue. The unhoused person in the frame is typically an extra or walks through the shot; he moves around the main characters but isn’t the main character. He is typically male, alone, and middle-aged in an urban environment.
Maid literally flipped the script: our character, Alex, is a woman, a mother, a survivor, a daughter, and unhoused. Alex is the main character in this series; she is dynamic, vulnerable, and relatable. Equally important, Alex is working, committed to a better life for her and her daughter, sober, and not experiencing a mental health issue. Alex is a survivor fleeing a domestic violence situation. Alex and Maddy more closely resemble those who are unhoused in America today. HUD’s last Point-in-Time Count, released in May 2025, told us that 1 in 5 people experiencing homelessness in Indiana is 24 years old or younger. The 2025 numbers also told us that the total number of individuals across the state rose by 24.5%, and households with children represent 10% of the total counted. The data shows that families are unhoused, and we know this is the fastest-growing demographic in our state.
In the series Maid, Maddy is unhoused with her mother. She is a child experiencing homelessness, sleeping in their car, on a ferry landing, in a shelter, and at her grandmother’s. We see the challenges Alex must navigate to keep her child safely sheltered/ this is the harrowing reality for so many tonight.
Where This Story Begins
The series doesn’t require viewers to ask why Alex and her daughter end up in the car in that first episode; it shows us. Alex is fleeing from domestic violence. On any single day in September 2024, the National Network to End Domestic Violence counted 79,088 adults and children being served by domestic violence programs across the country. More than 50,000 of them were in an emergency shelter, transitional housing, or a hotel room paid for by a program.
The entire first episode of this series shows Alex fleeing the remnants of abuse. Later on, she is sitting with a caseworker who asks her if she’s truly experienced abuse. Alex’s answer is that he’s never hit her. This doesn’t mean that the man in her life isn’t abusive; the rest of the series shows her coming to the realization that abuse is sometimes tricky to spot, but it’s just as damaging. The abuse is what causes her to flee.
The Big City Myth
Homelessness is a big city issue, or an urban issue. We know that is untrue; homelessness happens regardless of location. In fact, in Indiana, between 2023 and 2025, there has been a 16.6% increase in people experiencing homelessness. Rural areas are outpacing urban areas. This cliché picture of an unhoused person on a city park bench no longer fits the quintessential image of homelessness in Indiana, at least. Homelessness more closely resembles Maddy and Alex. They live in the Pacific Northwest, which could easily swap in for most suburban areas.
A New Beginning
In the last episode, Alex and Maddy are in the car again. (Spoiler Alert) Heading east for a creative-writing scholarship in Missoula. It is a triumphant ending and a true one: Stephanie Land, whose memoir the series is based on, did get into the University of Montana, did write a book, and did achieve a home for her and her daughter.
Alex got there in the end because of the support she received: a shelter bed, a client who wrote a reference, a grant for school, and a court date that went her way. This is the story of a system, a family, and what it looks like to be unhoused in America right now.
What to Watch for in the Series:
- The running dollar tally- this is the show’s true narrator.
- How many different places Alex and Maddy sleep across the episodes.
- The question “Did he hit you?” and every person who asks it, in words or a look.
- The playroom at the shelter, and the other mothers you barely meet. Each one is her own ten episodes.
- The word “homeless.” Count how rarely anyone says it about Alex and ask why the show avoids it.
