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 "housing bonds" ...
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Gates Foundation Investigation
LA Times examined which companies the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested in to see if those companies matched the foundation's ideals. The Times found that "about 41% o the foundation's investments (excluding government bonds and loaned investments), were in companies whose activities end o run directly counter to the foundation's philanthropic goals or high-minded philosophy."
Tags: Bill Gates; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; non profits; charities; investments; global health; housing instability; Berkshire Hathaway Corp.; Warren Buffett
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Broken Promises
Tax-exempt deals that provided $7 billion in bonds for low-income housing or inner-city schools turned out to be another way for banks and advisers to make money. Bloomberg investigates situations such as a deal in which JPMorgan Chase and Co. and American International Group "pocketed fees, along with their advisers, totaling $12 million." AIG and CDR of Beverly Hills actually had a deal "in which the financial firms made more money and faced less risk if none of the $220 million in bond funds was used by the public. None of it was." There were 70 other such deals across the country in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri. The investigation also includes similar situations of schools being neglected while insurance companies, banks and advisers profit.
Tags: school bonds; Wall Street; JPMorgan Chase and Co.; American International Group; Bank of America; housing bonds
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Moving out of Reach
This investigative report follows the results of the 1986 Census Bureau survey conducted about housing conditions in Orange County. Using CAR, Campbell's analysis revealed that "nearly a quarter million residents of Orange County--one family in nine--spend at least half their income on housing," which significantly exceeds the federal governent-recommended limit. This investigation also looked at te increase in tax-exempt bonds for luxury apartmet, despite a shortage of low-cost rental properties in the county.
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Habitat: Borrowed Dreams
This story discovers some negative outcomes within Habitat for Humanity, the popular charity that helps poor families become homeowners. The report found that Habitat's recipients were ill-prepared for home ownership. More than 40 percent of the local affiliate's homeowners filed for bankruptcy after moving into their homes, and nearly half of those who filed for bankruptcy did so multiple times. For many, Habitat's benefits, including its hallmark zero-interest mortgage, fell victim to crushing financial stresses. They found at least 40 examples of homeowners refinancing their no-interest mortgage, adding costly second mortgages or tacking criminal bail bond liens onto their homes. Desperate for cash paid at closing when taking a new home loan, homeowners paid fat fees and took on steep interest rates, some as high as 24 percent. Seventeen homeowners either lost their homes in foreclosure of deeded them to others. Some contributing factors involved Habitat for Humanity, for having inadequate front-end financial training, and a failure to protect Habitat mortgages from new lenders. Other factors stemmed from poverty in Memphis.
Tags: Habitat for Humanity; mortgage; bail bond liens; homeowners; bankruptcy; foreclosure; housing; loans; predatory lending; Collier County Habitat for Humanity; RISE Foundation; bankruptcy protection; low income housing
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Disorganization, shoddy record-keeping and missing expense reports could cost the city millions
The focus of this story was a sweeping blight removal program funded primarily by $250 million in municipal bonds. Under this program, the city had acquired some 5,000 properties using eminent domain, but many of the people whose homes were targeted for acquisition were denied their rights to timely notification and just compensation.
Tags: redevelopment; Office of Housing and Development; FOIA
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Under the Influence
A Camas Magazine investigative series "chronicles the ongoing controversy of a public/private partnership so faulty that it seriously threatens the fiscal, political and civic health" of Spokane. The partnership, known as River Park Square, was the developer of an upscale shopping mall. The stories reveal that the private party in the partnership - Spokane's most powerful family, the Cowleses, owners of the Spokane Review and the local NBC station - covered up the faults of the project by abusing media power. The construction of the shopping mall was financed "with a $23 million loan from the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency and $32 million of tax-exempt bonds secured by city parking meter revenues and a limited pledge of general fund revenue." The result: today the new mall is almost empty and facing bankruptcy, and the city and the taxpayers are losing money.
Tags: BOOK; SERIES; city government; business; Securities Exchange Commission (SEC); stocks and bonds; litigation; lawyers; litigation; IRS; tax rules violations; real estate; land development; poverty; Washington public records law
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How are you voting? What are your stocks?
A Business Week investigation finds that members of Congress often invest in companies whose fortunes they could influence. The story reveals that lawmakers often had insider information, which determined their or their relatives' stock trading decisions. For example, the reporter quotes the finding of a marketing professor that many members of the Congress sold tobacco stocks at the time when the antitobacco mood in Washington began to heat up. "The only strict prohibition bars members from voting on or pushing legislation that benefits a very small group ... but if the bill benefits them as ... shareholders, for example, they face no restrictions," the magazine reports.
Tags: insider trading; politicians; Congress; House; Senate; conflict of interests; tobacco; access to information; ethics; investments; stocks and bonds; financial disclosure filings
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Edifice Complex: Real Estate Magnate Draws Shareholder Ire For Odd Deal Making
The Wall Street Journal looks at the business practices of Transcontinental Realty Investor's Inc., managed by Gene E. Phillips, "one of the most controversial figures in publicly traded real estate." The story reports on the charges against Phillips, including "racketeering and wire fraud as a part of an alleged scheme to pay kick-backs to corrupt pension-fund officials in exchange for investing with one of the companies he controlled." The investigation reveals that Phillips was "chiefly responsible" for the collapse of Southmark, another real-estate company, according to the report of a bankruptcy examiner. The reporter sheds light on the role of Basic Capital, a real-estate advisory company, in Phillips' questionable deals.
Tags: real-estate investment trusts (REITs); bonds and stocks; securities; housing; bankruptcy; settlement; litigation; American Realty
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1999 IRE National Conference Show and Tell Tape #4
1999 IRE National Conference (Kansas City) Show and Tell Tape #4 is the fourth in a nine-part series. This tape includes: 1.) Anna Werner (KHOU-Houston) Sexual message 2.) Chris Halsne (KWTV-Oklahoma City) "Mismanagement 101" Waste of a million-dollar school bond. 3.) Shellee Smith/Jim Schaefer (WXYZ-Detroit) Fire station's alarm left behind in a move. Now someone has to run to the fire house to let them know about a fire. Huge delays in the system. It can be fixed simply by relocating the old system. 4.) Scott Brooks (WSOC-Charlotte, NC) Getting guns from unlicensed dealers during a gun show. 5.) Carol Kloss (KETV-Omaha) Home improvement fraud 6.) Matt Goldberg/Tony Kovaleski (KPRC-Houston) "Steroids for Sale" Man posing as physician's assistant dispenses steroids without prescriptions to residents and even police officers 7.) Eileen Walden/Sandra Chapman (WISH-Indianapolis) The investigation reveals the lax security at the Indiana state capital. There have been many thefts in recent years. AN intricate web of underground tunnels links several buildings in the capital complex. Once inside, the reporter moves around freely and even reaches the offices of state senators. The reporter manages to carry out an empty box that looks as though it has a computer inside. No one blinks an eye.
Tags: TAPE; Kansas City; conference; no transcripts; IRE
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Housing Authority Walks a Tightrope
With the executive director of the Virginia Housing Development Authority retiring, some say the agency may re-evaluate its lending practices. Part state agency and part bank, the VHDA has nimbly walked a tightrope since the legislature created the authority 25 years ago to provide needy renters and first-time home buyers with affordable housing. ON one side sit Wall Street investors who buy VHDA bonds expecting safe, solid returns on their money. On the other side wait needy residents whose relatively low income makes them financial risks because they'll struggle to pay the mortgages and rents VHDA collects to pay off investors.
Tags: None