San Diego County's social welfare programs lacking

San Diego County's social welfare safety net is riddled with gaps. A voiceofsandiego.org investigation has found that the county government's historical resistance to provide social welfare programs has left a wide chasm between last-resort aid and those on the bottom rungs of economic survival.

Ian Urbina of The New York Times reports that "state and federal lawmakers from around the country are pressing a variety of new laws that would make sweeping changes in the way runaways and prostituted children are handled by police officers and social workers."  Much of the new legislation was prompted by a Times series showing how the recession has led to an increase of young runaways involved in prostitution.

Clark Kauffman of the Des Moines Register reports that more than 300 mentally retarded wards of the state are being paid less than the minimum wage for work performed at two state-run homes for the disabled. Seventy-four of the workers are paid an average hourly wage of 60 cents or less, and some of the labor is performed for the benefit of various for-profit companies. One worker averages 11 cents an hour working for a company owned by one of the world's richest private equity firms, the Carlyle Group. The wages are legal under a 71-year-old federal law intended to promote job opportunities for the disabled.

A series by The Kansas City Star explores the problem of human trafficking, and how the U.S. is failing in its promise to end trafficking and other human rights abuses.  Their investigation "found that, in spite of all the rhetoric from the Bush and Obama administrations, the United States is failing to find and help tens of thousands of human trafficking victims in America."  The investigation also found that the Kansas City area has emerged as a hub for human trafficking.  36 alleged traffickers have been prosecuted in western Missouri in the past three years — more than anywhere else in the U.S.

A series by The Chicago Tribune traces the lingering impact of the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.  The evidence of exposure can still be seen in the many who suffer serious health issues, and birth defects have carried the legacy forth into a second generation.  With assistance from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, reporters from The Tribune spent a month traveling to eight provinces throughout Vietnam conducting nearly two dozen interviews with civilians and former soldiers who say they were exposed to Agent Orange and other defoliants.

A Columbus Dispatch investigation of domestic violence by Stephanie Czekalinski, Jill Riepenhoff and Mike Wagner shows flaws in Ohio laws and policies that create a culture of tolerance and indifference about the top crime in the state. Among the findings in the four-day series are that animals receive more protections than people, restraining orders for victims of domestic violence are flimsy protection at best, and the legal system allows repeat offenders to walk away from charges with little, if any, punishment, despite long histories of battering. Other members of the Dispatch Printing Company also produced stories on the topic this week including WBNS 10 TV, Ohio News Network, ThisWeek community newspapers, and Fronteras de la Noticia, a Spanish-language weekly.

In the third part of "Wasting Away," an investigation of D.C.'s AIDS program,The Washington Post found the city awarded a $1 million AIDS contract to a woman who had just been convicted in federal court for a mortgage fraud scheme that bilked lenders out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over three years, the city approved invoices with unnamed employees and subcontractors, rent at a high-end office that was rarely used and start-up costs for furniture and equipment that city officials later deemed improper. The city cut ties earlier this year, after paying out more than $2 million from the city's AIDS fund

In a city ravaged by the highest rate of AIDS case in the nation, the D.C. Health Department paid millions to nonprofit groups that delivered substandard services or failed to account for any work at all, even as sick people searched for care or died waiting. A ten-month Washington Post investigation found AIDS money was given to one of the most notorious drug dealers in D.C. history, people that submitted fake resumes and consulting contracts, and groups without offices, staff or any background in health care.

David Shaffer of the Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.) presented a detailed look at how foreign adoptions often lead to nothing but heartbreak for everyone involved, from the birth mother to the adoptive parent. The two-day series also exposed a glaring loophole in a newly implemented treaty aimed at cutting down on corruption in the international baby trade.

A report by Kim Christensen and Garrett Therolf of The Los Angeles Times reveals that the Los Angeles County child welfare system is riddled with problems. In many cases, children died with little notice by the system or the public. "At least 268 children who had passed through the child welfare system died from January 2008 through early August 2009, according to internal county records obtained by The Times. They show that 213 were by unnatural or undetermined causes, including 76 homicides, 35 accidents and 16 suicides."