Detroit’s Human Services Department spends $200k+ on new furnishings instead of feeding and clothing low-income families

Steve Neavling and Jim Schaefer of the Detroit Free Press uncover, that despite a third of Detroit’s population living below the federal poverty line, their Human Services Department spent “$182,000 in furniture purchases destined for the department offices at 5031 Grandy, near Warren and Mt. Elliott.”

City officials said the purchases were especially egregious because the agency handles most of the federal money to feed and clothe poor people, find jobs for unemployed people, create subsidized housing, open homeless shelters and operate the early childhood education program Head Start.

“In a state where nursing homes are rarely sanctioned, federal regulators did not penalize one of Hawaii’s premium institutions for its failure to protect defenseless elderly women from a sexually abusive caregiver. They also didn’t sanction a nursing home even after a nurse’s failure to follow physician orders resulted in the puncturing of a man’s abdominal organ, requiring surgery. The nurse inserted a feeding tube larger than what the doctor ordered. Those were among the cases Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Rob Perez cited to illustrate that Hawaii nursing homes often go unpenalized even when deficient care leads to resident harm. Over the past six years, the state had the second-lowest sanction rate in the country.”

“There’s a complete breakdown of oversight,” said Charlene Harrington, emeritus professor of sociology and nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. “There’s something really wrong.”

Two women who worked for the Department of Workforce Services conspired to create a list of undocumented immigrants who were receiving state assistance. Leah Carson was reluctant at first but was eventually convinced by her co-worker, Teresa Bassett to help create the list. Bassett's intent was to hand the list over to immigration officials. The women were caught and fired after the list was released. Carson stepped forward to work with investigators and admitted her mistakes. Bassett has been less willing to cooperate.

In a five-year investigation, Seattle Weekly reporter Rick Anderson has brought to light the 1969 murder of the Northwest civil rights activist and leader, Edwin Pratt. This detailed report discloses new details on a decades old case that has gone unsolved and reveals "the likely solving of the historic racial assassination of the director of Seattle's Urban League."

In this series that was "inspired by a session at the IRE conference in 2010," The Columbus Dispatch reporters Rita Price, Jill Riepenhoff and Jennifer Smith-Richards reveal that thousands of adults with intellectual disabilities working across Ohio are receiving wages that "pay less money than a teen-age baby sitter earns." A provision in the federal wage law allows "employers to pay less than minimum wage if adults have disabilities that limit their productivity." The issue has prompted a divided response from the communities affected.

"A Palm Beach Post investigation found that Florida is doling out heavy doses of antipsychotic drugs to kids locked up in state juvenile jails. The drugs, which can cause suicidal thoughts and other dangerous side effects, are being prescribed by contracted doctors who, in some cases, have taken tens of thousands of dollars in speaker fees and other payments from companies that make antipsychotic medications."

In Florida's juvenile jails, psychiatrists entrusted with diagnosing and prescribing drugs for wayward children have taken huge speaker fees from drug makers - companies that profit handsomely when doctors put kids on antipsychotic pills.

Christina Boomer and Mark LaMet at KNXV-TV in Phoenix discovered more than 400 sex crimes cases, many involving young children, were ignored by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. Detectives never interviewed victims, witnesses or potential suspects, despite having solid leads in most cases. In the City of El Mirage, AZ, 43 of 51 sex crimes cases handled by the MCSO SVU had not been worked at all or had minimal follow up conducted. When El Mirage Police went back to review the cases, most of the victims had moved and could not be reached. One day after the initial investigation aired, the MCSO admitted the problem was even bigger, having to reopen more than 500 cases county-wide. A follow up story revealed the Sergeant in charge of MCSO SVU cleared cases, even though no work had actually been done.

In "Million-Dollar Wasteland," The Washington Post's Debbie Cenziper reports that the federal government's largest housing construction program for the poor has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on stalled or abandoned  projects and routinely failed to crack down on derelict developers or the local housing agencies that funded them. Nationwide, nearly 700 projects awarded $400 million have been idling for years -- some for a decade or longer. One delayed project involved three real-estate speculators, once convicted in the largest HUD scandal in D.C. history, who sold rotting apartment complexes to a HUD-funded nonprofit using an inflated appraisal written by one of the sellers' associates. The nonprofit went bankrupt before any work was done; the District lost millions.

Yang Wang  reports on the disturbing low-income housing neighborhood conditions in Houston, TX that led to a teens death. Just weeks before 19-year-old Jamesha Floyd was pulled from her burning home, her aunt and uncle complained to their landlord about faulty electrical wiring in the four-room house they shared with Floyd on Sayers Street. And even though many of the exploitative property owners have been "issued correction orders" many problems go unattended, such as, "roofs or walls not waterproofed; improperly attached building parts that might fall; holes, cracks, breaks on floors, walls or ceilings; rubbish, tires and other unsanitary items covering the yards and other conditions that violate construction or fire codes."

In the series, Neglected to Death, Miami Herald reporters Michael Sallah, Rob Barry and Carol Marbin Miller revealed that "caretakers in assisted-living facilities across Florida" were neglecting patients of proper medical attention and basic care. The improper care has led to the deaths of dozens of residents. The Herald obtained "confidential records" from the Department of Children & Families that documented the deaths of "70 people who died in the past eight years from the actions of their caregivers." Many of the cases are overlooked, and the caretakers are rarely held accountable for the deaths of the residents.