Norwegian director Monica Strømdahl spent years traveling across the United States, documenting life in cheap hotels also known as flophouses. Then in 2017, she met 11-year-old Mikal in a hotel lobby.

“Who spilled vodka on the cat?” are words that, to my knowledge, have never been spoken in a movie before. Until now. They are uttered by 12-year-old Mikal in the documentary Flophouse America, which ...

Premieres Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream with KPBS+ More than a decade ago, in the Emmy-nominated documentary "Poor Kids," the acclaimed PBS series FRONTLINE explored poverty in ...

What happens when you grow up poor in America—and stay in touch with the same filmmaker for more than a decade? In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast, host Raney Aronson-Rath speaks with ...