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 project" ...
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Big Money 2012
Big Money 2012 is an unprecedented multi-platform project to investigate campaign finance in the post-Citizens United era. Spanning television documentary, radio and online news outlets, this initiative draws on the award-winning talents of some of the best in the industry to dig deep into a story that goes to the foundations of our democracy. FRONTLINE’s pre-election TV broadcast of Big Sky, Big Money in partnership with American Public Media’s Marketplace formed the center of this multiplatform investigation, Big Money 2012, which continued on the radio and on the web. Further coverage of this timely story also continued online as part of ProPublica’s Dark Money series featuring reporting by ProPublica investigative reporter Kim Barker with Rick Young and Emma Schwartz reporting for FRONTLINE. Big Money 2012 tells a tale of money, politics, and intrigue in the remote epicenter of campaign finance, Montana. The investigation led the teams from big sky country—to a meth house in Colorado and to a UPS store in D.C. as they followed a trail of documents. What they find exposes the inner-workings of a dark money group. In all, it’s a unique collaboration a year in the making, which has led to robust journalism with real impact. And, the story is still unfolding.
Tags: campaign finance; politics; politicians
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War Zone: The Destruction of an All-American City
The hour-long documentary War Zone: The Destruction of an All-American City takes an unprecedented look at the impact of corruption on the East St. Louis, Illinois area, one of the poorest and most violent communities in America. The program was broadcast twice during prime time; Tuesday night at 8 pm on August 28, and the following Saturday night at 7 pm. This project was the result of an ongoing decade-long probe of government waste, corruption, police misconduct, and violence in East St. Louis and the surrounding villages by investigative reporter Craig Cheatham. Our documentary begins with a detailed look at police misconduct and corruption, how it has contributed to the breakdown of public safety in the East St. Louis area, and why local politicians tolerated such outrageous behavior by their officers. The second part of our documentary focuses on the impact of derelict and vacant housing, the slumlords who own the property and the people who live in some of the worst housing in the metro area. Our investigation also uncovered new connections between politicians and legendary slumlord Ed Sieron, who was business partners with a longtime mayor. In addition, KMOV revealed that of the 500 mostly rundown properties that Sieron owns in East St. Louis, only 13 were cited for code violations. That lack of accountability for the notorious slumlord, empowered him and made the people living in his homes feel powerless. War Zone also exposes the way East St. Louis communities have sold their economy to vice-driven businesses like strip clubs, liquor stores, a casino, and convenience marts that had a long history of selling illegal synthetic drugs. Our investigation found that nearly all of these businesses failed to employ a significant number of East St. Louis residents, even though they received millions of dollars in tax incentives that are paid by East St. Louis residents. At the same time East St. Louis is handing out tax breaks to wealthy out-of-town businessmen, it repeatedly refused to provide the same tax incentives for local residents who wanted to create family friendly businesses that would employ people living in the East St. Louis area.
Tags: government corruption; police misconduct; violence; politicians; community; local business
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Pasco County Housing Authority
WSTP-TV discovered that Pasco Housing Authority was being severely mismanaged. The residents living in the housing projects were being ignored and abused because of incompetence and willful misuse of state and federal funds. They were also being retaliated against for bringing up problems at their homes to the board. Not only was the executive director having sex at the office with people who worked for her, but she was also padding her paramour's overtime sheets.
Tags: Housing Projects
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The Well Connected
The Gazette revealed how a developer in Charleston improperly secured $3.67 million in federal stimulus funds to build a low-income housing project with help from West Virginia's treasurer.
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Million-Dollar Wasteland
"This series investigates the federal government's largest housing construction program for the poor. It found that the program has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on stalled or abandoned projects and routinely failed to crack down on derelict developers or local housing agencies that funded them."
Tags: HUD; housing; federal programs; urban housing
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Bad loans, No penalties
The state of Ohio leads the nation in failed loans, which the federal government corrects while the communities suffer. One of the biggest stories, which led to the investigation and this series, was when “Columbus developers walked away from an apartment-renovation project and $26 million in government-insured loans”. Further, there wasn’t anything that held these developers liable to repay the money.
Tags: Federal Housing Administration (FHA); tenants; neighbors; local officials; foreclosure; taxpayers; property; Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
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"KZN Reverands Prey On The Dying"
At one time, Reverends Harris and De Witt brought comfort to the patients of The Dream Centre, an HIV-Aids hospice center in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This was before they fled the country with a stash of cash. The two men had been largely inflating their subsidy claims to the Department of Health and taking the extra money for their own use.
Tags: Cape Town; KwaZulu-Natal; The Dream Centre; National Department of Health; Les Harris; Neville de Witt; Mophela Housing Project
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Through the Cracks
The 1988 brutal rape and murder of a young mother and her daughter has left the child's grandmother, Phyllis Little, with 21 years of questions. In 2009, the NYPD announced they had arrested a man and charged him with the double-murder. Reporter Joshua Kors provides a detailed look at the lives of the murdered mother, as well as the man accused of killing her. Kors also describes the pain and guilt felt by Little for more than two decades.
Tags: crack; Bronx; low-cost housing; DNA; Five Percenters; Rikers Island prison; Bronx River Projects; West Farms
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Demoted to Private: America's Military Housing Disaster
Political patronage, the zeal to privatize and a failure at background checks led to a disaster for taxpayers and military families in Pentagon housing programs in six states. All three branches of the service gave 8,000 military houses and billion-dollar contracts to a company headed by a politically-connected Texan involved in a messy bankruptcy and a Connecticut property management firm that had been previously suspended from HUD housing projects because it diverted millions to its own uses.
Tags: military; housing; privatization; Pentagon; government contracts; corporate abuse; whistle-blower
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Insurers Criticized for New Rate Models
This story investigates property-casualty insurers' use of controversial computer models created by various modeling firms; the computer models use complex data to project potential losses from hurricanes and other natural disasters. But investigative reporting revealed the models can be flawed in their design, in their assumptions or in their application by insurers.
Tags: housing; rate increases; computer models; potential losses; property insurance; premiums