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 "Rental Housing" ...
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Los Angeles VA Has Made Millions on Rental Deals
This story is about one of the most fought-over pieces of property in Los Angeles, the 400 acre Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus in West Los Angeles. It’s in an affluent neighborhood and has been a target of developers. But with many unused buildings, it’s also been coveted as a place to house some of L.A.’s 8,000 homeless veterans. That was the original use of the land, which was donated for an Old Soldiers’ Home in the late 19th century. The VA has not acted on plans announced in 2007 to begin rehabbing unused buildings there for housing for homeless vets. Meanwhile, it’s rented out land and buildings to commercial enterprises. There is no public accounting for this income. Through FOIA and other documents, we found that the VA is renting out the property using a law intended for sharing health care resources, though the renters are non-health related commercial enterprises. We were also able to estimate that the VA has taken in at least 28 million and possibly more than 40 million dollars over the past dozen years, far more than the cost of re-habbing a building to house homeless vets.
Tags: Property; neighborhood; land uses; veterans
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Troubled Landlords
For at least a decade, Twin Cities landlords Hyder Jaweed and Asgher Ali ran a rental property empire that left hundreds of tenants -- most often low income and/or immigrants -- living in squalid conditions and left city inspectors wishing there were laws to stop the landlords.
Tags: landlords; housing; inspectors; renters
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Lost Among the Ruins
With at least 100,000 apartment units and more than 500,000 people, "the D.C. Attorney general's office "has prosecuted only four landlords for housing-code violations since 2001, or less than one case per year." In addition, the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs "had no agency-wide process for collecting fines and is owed more than $8.8 million in outstanding fines and penalties in more than 22,000 housing-violation cases." The Legal Times touches on these issues, as well as the story of convicted slumlord David Nuyen, "who is still renting apartment units in D.C. despite a court order for him to get out of the rental business."
Tags: Slumlords; Washington, D.C. Attorney general; D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs; David Nuyen
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The Scumlords
A three part series which examines the actions of Skyline's landlord. Security employees used scare tactics trying to get rent controlled tenets to leave so the landlord could charge more. Complaints of housing conditions were numerous. The third part focused on the family history of the owners of Skyline.
Tags: landlord; rental; rent control; housing conditions; Skyline; San Francisco;
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Housing Headaches
Since the balcony collapses of 2003 in Chicago, building codes and regulations have had to change because of the resulting deaths. The student rental properties' landlords are not maintaining the property or inspecting them every three years as they should.
Tags: student housing; rental; housing code; property damage; safety
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If These Walls Could Talk
Rental property in two neighborhoods heavily populated by University of Minnesota students were found to have faulty plumbing repairs, a lack of or broken smoke detectors, handrails missing in the interior, and illegal wiring. Reports were kept over three time periods since 2001 to check the safety of the properties because of a house fire that killed University of Minnesota students.
Tags: rental; safety; living conditions; student housing; IRE Student Entry
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Welfare Slum Lord
This investigation revealed the misdeeds of one of Canada's worst slumlords. The landlord rented tiny, substandard rooms at exorbitant rates to poor tenants. Many of his renters were on welfare, so the state was paying the landlord thousands of dollars per month. He was later charged with the murder of one of his tenants and was caught trying to flee the country.
Tags: housing; welfare; Vancouver; slums; slumlords; murder; rental housing
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In Your Corner: 1-800-No-Agent Makes No Deal
KFOR's investigation found a former Okla. state senator running a fraudulent real estate agency that reneged on buyers' contracts. The state senator had previously served time in a federal prison for defrauding the Department of Housing and Urban Development . His new agency was receiving income from Section 8 rental properties despite a lifetime ban from receiving federal housing funds.
Tags: fraud; real estate; Housing and Urban Development; Section 8; real estate scam; former senator
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Housing Code Violations Fall Through the Cracks
Spencer Soper and Santa Rosa's Press Democrat investigate how landlords in Sonoma County exploited a weak and understaffed county code enforcement division. Landlords let their rental properties fall into disrepair, endangered the lives of tenants, and piled up numerous violations with no serious legal repercussions.
Tags: rental properties; housing inspection; housing code violations; Sonoma County Housing; negligent landlord
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A Future Foreclosed
This two-part investigation shows how Boshwit Brothers Mortgage Co, a longtime Memphis mortgage company specializing in loans to the poor, used Tennessee's lender-friendly foreclosure laws to take possession of 189 houses where it had made mortgages. It seized the property when the owners couldn't meet the high-interest payments. Many of the properties were converted to rentals and entered in a federal rent subsidy program that nets the firm $240,000 a year.
Tags: NAACP; real estate; rent; landlords