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 "slum" ...
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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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The Specialist
This investigative piece exposes how Scott Wizig takes advantage of low-income, bad-credited house buyers and is punished for it in Buffalo, NY, but his unethical practices are looked over in Houston, TX.
Tags: house; lease; home owner; housing; credit; Buffalo; slum; slumlord; blight; Houston; contract; deed; NTI
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Fields of Despair: North Florida Laborers, Lured to Farms by Recruiters' Promises, Reap Poverty, Pain and Exploitation
"'Fields of Despair' exposed the often hidden , and often brutal, working conditions encountered by farmworkers in the nation's second richest farm state. It told how the powerful profit even as workers suffer sweatshop hours, slum housing, poverty pay and criminal abuse." The reporter suggests that the fact that half of the state Legislature's House Committee on Agriculture are farmers or have connections to the industry might have affected the lack of reform legislation.
Tags: FOIA
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Fields of Despair
This report examines the harrassment of Florida's farmworkers who are lured with fake promises by contractors. This report describes a tale of hidden, often brutal working conditions where farmworkers live in slum housing, povery pay and criminal abuse. The examination also unravels as to how scofflaw farm labour contractors (middlemen) are still eyeing preys despite many of them having stripped licences and prison histories. Furthermore, the story details on how work against this harrassment is unsuccessful largely because politicians themselves have vested interests in many farmlands in this area.
Tags: agriculture; North Florida; abuse
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Public Housing as a "poorhouse"
Public housing is being demolished under a new housing policy. However, public housing still is flawed and our continued efforts to change it have failed: We've simply created news and worse slums.
Tags: housing; Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis; public housing; HUD; FHA; housing projects
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Trouble comes home to inspector; Tenants, neighbors raise bitter complaints; 4 more housing employees linked to blighted properties; Shadow system benefits top aide of housing chief;
The Baltimore Sun investigates local housing inspectors and finds that many of them are slum lords themselves.
Tags: Baltimore; housing; slum lords; inspectors
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Slumlord Investigation
A KMOV-TV investigation reveals "five investors, including a convicted double murderer, rented slum properties without permits and allegedly threatened to kill at least one tenant if she complained about living conditions."
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; slumlords; St. Louis; Missouri; living conditions
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Show & Tell: IRE 2001 National Conference (Chicago)
Compilation tape of investigative stories presented at the 2001 IRE national conference in Chicago: Tape 1 1.) KVBC-TV (Nevada) - "Honor Thy Father" 2.) KHOU 11 (Houston) - "Highway Health Hazard" 3.) Inside Edition - "Drink Up" 4.) KOAA-TV (Colorado Springs) - "Mother Goose daycare investigation" 5.) WSTN-TV (Syracuse) - "Pipeline to Crack" 6.) WAGA-TV (Atlanta) - "On the net; on the clock" 7.) KSAZ-TV (Phoenix) - "Capital Credit" 8.) Inside Edition - "Televangelists" 9.) WJW (Fox 8 Cleveland) - "Coats for Kids" 10.)Kelo-TV (Sioux Falls) - "Painful Steps" 11.) WNBC-TV (New York) - "Help on Hold" 12.) WFLD-TV (Chicago) - "Aggressive Drivers" 13.) WXYZ-TV (Detroit) - "Get Out Alive" 14.) WCPO-TV (Cincinnati) - "Airport Security" 15.) KMOL-TV (San Antonio) - "Slum Lords" 16.) WDIV-TV (Detroit) - "Stealing Power" 17.) WSMV 4 (Nashville) - "A few deadly breaths" 18.) WTVF (Nashville) - "Who's Policing the Police?" 19.) KDFW (Dallas) - "Spot Delivery" 20.) WTVJ (Miami) - "The Price of Beauty" 21.) WXYZ-TV (Detroit) - "Weight Loss Scams" 22.)KETV (Omaha) - "Police Complaints" 23.) KDFW (Dallas) - "Identity Theft" Tape 2 1.) WABC-TV (New York) - "Caught Off Guard" 2.) WTMJ-TV (Milwaukee) - "Get out of jail free" 3.) KTVT-TV (Fort Worth) - "INS Application Scam" 4.) KRON-TV (San Francisco) - "Moving Violations" 5.) WSPA-TV (South Carolina) - "Goodwill Firings" 6.) KWTV 9 (Oklahoma City) - "Lemon on the Lot" 7.) WLOS-TV (Asheville) - "Save or Slaughter" 8.) WISH-TV (Indianapolis) - "Tipped off" 9.) WAMI-TV (Miami) - "AIDS Charity Scam" 10.) WITI-TV (Milwaukee) - "Marine Corp Toxic Water" 11.) WFLD-TV (Chicago) - "No prescription, no doctor" 12.) XETV 6 (San Diego) - "Port Perks" 13.) KSTP-TV (St. Paul) - "Lasik Surgery" 14.) News 12 Long Island (Woodbury, N.Y.) - "Bad Medicine" 15.) News 12 Long Island (Woodbury, N.Y.) - "Double Dipping" 16.) KVBC-TV (Las Vegas) - "Mud Slinging Exposed" 17.) KVBC-TV (Las Vegas) - "What Lies Beneath" 18.) KHOU 11 (Houston) - "Sex Offender Teachers" 19.) KHOU 11 (Houston) - "Highway Health Hazard" 20.) WISH-TV (Indianapolis) - "Inspecting the Inspectors" 21.) WCPO 9 (Kentucky) - "NKU Rape Investigations"
Tags: TAPE
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Hunting Down a Slumlord
"This story demonstrated conclusively how slum properties can be shuffled among a small cadre of co-conspirators, keeping law enforcement and housing activists at bay. " and revealed "how a slumlord managed to defy the best efforts of housing enforcement officials and his own tenants to bring a substandard building up to code, even when he was slapped with a $455,000 judgment against him."
Tags: slum lords; housing
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A lord of the slums takes an apprentice
This "series focused on the epidemic of lead paint poisoning among Baltimore's children, using database analysis and previously unavailable records to establish that thousands of toddlers are being brain damaged in the city's slums because of a breakdown in housing code enforcement and inadequate public health safeguards." The Sun also used release forms to get at confidential medical records, and hired their own experts to test for environmental hazards.
Tags: lead paint; housing; poor; "Zombieland; Health Department; real estate; drugs; money laundering; poverty law clinic