The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Community Development Department" ...
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Murder Mysteries
Schripps Howard News Service has conducted the most complete accounting ever made of homicide victims in the United States. Aggressive use of state and local Freedom of Information laws allowed the wire service to assemble a database of 525,742 homicides, including records of 15,322 killings never reported to the FBI. The "Murder Mysteries" project calculated the homicide clearance rate for every police department in the U.S., prompting four departments to promise reforms. Scripps also developed an algorithm that identified 161 suspicious clusters of unsolved homicides involving women of similar age killed through similar means. Authorities in Gary, Ind., and Youngstown, Ohio, Launched new investigations into possible serial murder in their communities as a result of this project.
Tags: Murder; mystery; FBI; homicide; killings; serial killer; police department; investigation; FOI; algorithm; computer-assisted reporting;
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Broken Bridges: Did City Hall's plan to fight gangs bankroll a gangster?
Ex-gang member and alleged Mexico Mafia member Hector Marroquin, Sr. founded a gang-prevention program in Los Angeles in 1997 that was supported by nearly $1.5 million from the City COuncil. Using FOIA requests and over 50 interviews, L.A. Weekly reporters Jeffrey Anderson and Christine Pelisek point out that the program had no oversight, no means of measuring its success in keeping children out of gangs. They also uncovered nepotism, and evidence suggesting Marroquin was a member of the Mexican Mafia while he ran the anti-gang program.
Tags: L.A. Bridges; gang intervention programs; Hector Marroquin; Networks Organizing for Gang Unity and Neighborhood Safety; N.O. G.U.N.S; L.A. County Probation Department; Mexican Mafia; drug trade; FOIA; Community Development Department; DEA; Drug Enforcement Administration; L.A. Sherriff's Department; Diversified Strategies for Organizing; People Works, Inc.; Central Recovery Development Project; Toberman Settlement House;
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Nonprofit groups and Legal Action say Fire Department money is up in smoke
The Milwaukee Street Beacon uncovered thathundreds of thousands of Community Development Block Grant dollars went to play Milwaukee Fire Department staffers, instead of to neighborhood organizations.
Tags: HUD; Housing and Urban Development; Community Development Block Grants; Fire Fighters Out Creating Urban Safety; FOCUS; fire detectors; fire prevention; Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation; NICD; Merrill Park NEighborhood Association; Legal Action; Community Parole Watch
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Traffic Congestion on U.S. 1 in Jensen Beach
Traffic congestion on a highly commercializes section of a highway in Jensen Beach was getting progressively worse because elected officials in that county allowed development to continue even though the highway fails to meet county standards for traffic flow. This investigation shows how this happened and what affects it will have on the community of Jensen Beach.
Tags: traffic; construction; commercial development; Florida Department of Transportation
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Taken for a Ride
This story is about how non-profits sold clunker cars to welfare recipients while used-car dealers reaped millions. The non-profit Wheels-to-Work program managers set up exclusive deals with friends who sold used cars to the program. The state spent $10,700 per person, but bought cars that cost $2,300 on average, and twice as much as programs in other states. State officials didn't start to monitor the program until two years after it started, and overlooked suspected fraud and mismanagement.
Tags: car; nonprofit; welfare; welfare recipients; used-car dealers; West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources; Wheels-to-Work Program; Community Action of South Eastern West Virginia; CASE; Belcher's Auto Sales; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program; National Association of Social Workers; AFL-CIO; Human Resources Development Foundation; Good News Mountaineer Garage; DHHR; Legislative Oversight commission on Workforce Investment
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The $100 Million Failure
The Post investigates how a small group of nonprofits in DC have spent more than $100 million in housing grant moneys awarded by the state Department of Housing and Community Development. The series reveal that the agency has failed to monitor the nonprofits' spending; no uniform standards have been used to measure the progress of construction projects aimed to rebuild poor neighborhoods; some of the nonprofits had for-profit subsidiaries that benefited from the grants.
Tags: real estate; poverty; crime; economic development; affordable housing
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Subsidizing Blight
Governing magazine takes a look the federal government's Section 8 housing program and its effects on a few neighborhoods in U.S. cities. The federal housing vouchers are supposed to break up concentrations of poverty, but critics say it often just creates new ones.
Tags: federal housing vouchers; Section 8; poverty; housing; Baltimore; community development; housing projects; low-income neighborhoods; housing program; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; HUD; Patterson Park; voucher program; transitional neighborhoods
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Arresting Developments
The American Prospect looks at the use of police powers to enforce law on private property. The story reveals that police officers - often in uniform - are hired by private developments to enforce their private parking, speeding, trespassing, loitering, etc. rules. Cops cannot give a speeding ticket to someone who is violating a private speeding limit on a private speed, but they could consider arresting the violator for 'operating to endanger,' the magazine reveals. The reporter finds that "taken together, these moves represent a qualitative, though little noted, expansion of public law enforcement into the realm of private space." A major finding is that the approximately 25,000 private communities that already pay for their own private security patrols could argue successfully that they should not have to pay to support the public police system because they are policing themselves.
Tags: Jacksonville sheriff's department; moonlighting; gated communities; business; corporations; arrests; security; courts; property taxes; municipal services
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Neighborhood Predators
The Ford Foundation reports on the fine line between predatory lending and subprime loans -- those that are more expensive because of the higher risk involved. Without subprime loans many minority families would not be able to buy homes, the article reports. Because the institutions giving subprime loans are often not banks, there's no way to monitor their behavior. "It's like the Wild West," the article reports.
Tags: predatory lending; Community Reinvestment Act; U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development; flipping
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The Florida Mile
A Washington City Paper investigation reveals that one of every six buildings along the Florida Ave. is an abandoned ruin, but "somehow the D.C. government hasn't noticed." The story finds that "District officials use the property-tax system not as a potential tool to facilitate the repair of vacant buildings, but as a club to blunt the likelihood that such properties will ever be refurbished." The reporter points to examples of misclassification of properties, which have cost the city thousands of dollars in uncollected taxes.
Tags: absentee ownership; nuisance properties; neighborhoods; Department of Housing and Community Development; taxes; condemned property; Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs