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 properties" ...
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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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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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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
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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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Misery for Rent
This three part series investigates landlords who abuse loopholes in the rental system, how abandoned rentals lower the value of neighborhoods, how some rental properties in Iowa have fire safety problems, and how sometimes, it's tenants behaving badly that causes rental problems. There are also specific investigations, such as problems at a landmark Iowa City complex, and a tenant dispute in Cedar Rapids regarding a broken stove.
Tags: rental properties; landlords; tenants; Cedar Rapids; Iowa City
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Pure Greed: Why are so many San Franciscans losing their homes to the Ellis Act? So their landlords can make even more money.
According to the article, "When the Ellis Act was winding through the state legislature in the late 1980s, no one except the most seasoned tenant activists saw the danger....And while property owners may claim that the act simply allows them to get out of the landlord business, one thing's for sure: the more money they can make, the more owners take advantage of it. Between 1988 and 1995, San Francisco landlords used the law to take 25 buildings off the rental market. Between 1996 and 1999, as property values rose, they emptied 305 buildings -- evicting tenants from more than a thousand units."
Tags: Ellis Act; state legislature; California; housing; rental housing; apartments; landlord; property owners; tenants