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-code violations" ...
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Forced Out
This series from the Washington Post investigates the corrupt practices of landlords driving tenants from their homes under the guise of refusing repairs or forcing families to live without heat, hot water or electricity. This was in response to a law meant to give tenants a voice in the city's redevelopment. In recent years, tenants had fled more than 200 rent-controlled apartment complexes without the chance to vote on redevelopment. With empty buildings, landlords quickly reaped $328 million in condominium sales and avoided $16 million in conversion fees.
Tags: housing; tenant laws; redevelopment; housing-code violations; building inspections; negligent landlords; H.R. Crawford
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Series on Flushing Lanlord Nicholas Haros
An investigation into the landlord Nicholas Haros housing code violations revealed that there was difference between city department rule and official city law. This allowed Haros to collect tax benefits despite his violations.
Tags: Queens, housing; housing code; tax; city government; landlord; tax benefit; abatement
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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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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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Subject to Inspection: Belleville's Housing Code Enforcement
A Belleville News-Democrat investigation revealed that "a Belleville housing code enforcement officer and an armed police officer routinely show up for occupancy permit inspections without a search warrant. When residents refuse to let them enter, the residents are issued tickets, a violation of the Fourth Amendment guarantee against illegal search and seizure. In some cases, these inspections are used as a cover to search for drugs or other criminal activity."
Tags: housing code enforcement; warrant; law; seizure; violation; Fourth Amendment; illegal; search; drugs; crime; search warrant; occupancy permit inspections; Belleville; Illinois
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Slumlords
KMOL-TV (San Antonio) examines numerous housing code violations at San Antonio properties. The report focuses on problems at the New Light Village, where the new owner, the San Antonio Alternative Housing, is spending $5 million on repairs. The story reveals that some landlords have made no effort to prevent hundreds of city code violations, and exposes some of the habitual violators - Morris Rosenstain and Dr. Raul Cantu - who own dozens of rental properties. The reporter interviews tenants complaining of raw sewage outside their apartments and of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Tags: transcript; landlords; rental properties; apartments; tenants; housing standards
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Violating Code: The Neglect of Lafayette's Neighborhoods (Housing Code Violations)
A comprehensive review of housing code violation notices revealed that the majority of problems were concentrated in a small section of Lafayette, particularly in older neighborhoods west of the railroad tracks. The investigation showed that a handful of property owners had dozens of repeat offenses because they knew that ignored complaints went away. Homeowners, discouraged with little recourse against negligent property owners, are leaving neighborhoods, worsening the cycle of neglect. Profiles on the five property owners with the most violations, on neighbors who gave up and those fighting back, and on renters with no choice but to stay in the unsafe conditions.
Tags: slum; urban decay
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No title (id: 12774)
The Journal Star investigates rental housing violators in the local area. Houses on about one in five of city streets came before the Housing Commission or the housing court, but the two top violators were treated more leniently than landlords overall and paying less in average fines. (Dec. 17 - 21, 1995)
Tags: Okeson CAR City of blight rental decay Contest entry Housing codes 22pgs.
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No title (id: 9025)
City Limits (New York) establishes a connection between unscrupulous real estate speculators, horrific housing conditions in New York's slums, and the city's real estate market condition; followed seven landlords who had failed to maintain their buildings in livable conditions, even as they tried to charge tenants illegally high rents or evade prosecution for housing code violations; most of the landlords were deep in debt because they had mortgaged the structures in the 1980s for unrealistic sums, March 1992.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 8464)
WWMT-TV (Kalamazoo, Mich.) investigates a list of landlords who have recurring housing code violations and finds that many of the tenants in these substandard dwellings are afraid to tip off inspectors, for fear the units will be condemned and they will be forced to live in shelters, Sept. 10 - 11, 1991.
Tags: TAPE; Winter Slum lords Housing