At a Remote Mental Health Facility, a Culture of Cruelty Persists Despite Decades of Warnings
Federal and state officials have urged reforms at the rural facility for people with mental and developmental disabilities. But the state-run center still has more allegations of abuse and neglect than any other in Illinois.
Local Reporting Network
A Disabled Young Patient Was Sent to Get Treatment. He Was Abused Instead. And He Wasn’t the Last.
The 24-year-old with developmental disabilities was brutally beaten by his caretakers inside a state-run facility with a long history of patient abuse.
Local Reporting Network
Lawmakers Demand Action on Child Welfare Failures
Calls for improved access to mental health and substance abuse treatment follow reporting by ProPublica and The Southern Illinoisan on the large number of parents investigated repeatedly by Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services.
Local Reporting Network
What We Lose When We Conflate Child “Abuse” and “Neglect”
Growing up in Southern Illinois, I knew many children whose basic needs went unmet. Reporting here decades later, I began to wonder why the system wasn’t doing more to help their families.
Local Reporting Network
The State Took His Kids Three Times. And Three Times It Gave Them Back.
In Southern Illinois, many families suspected of neglect cycle through the child welfare system. Too often they don’t get the help they need.
Local Reporting Network
My Home Is a Place That Feels Safe. For Too Many Families, That’s Not the Case.
Where we live becomes part of who we are. It affects our quality of life. That’s why I report on low-income housing.
“They Painted Over Problems”: How Residents of One Affordable Housing Complex Went From Hope to Despair
Twenty years after a private developer took over an affordable housing complex, the property has deteriorated once again and is in need of a multimillion-dollar renovation.
Local Reporting Network
Inside Public Housing Where Cockroaches Drop From the Wall and Kids are Getting Sick
Illinois’ HUD inspection failure rate is among the worst in the nation. A housing authority has delayed replacing one property for more than a decade. As the need for public housing rises, conditions in the aging structures are deteriorating.
Local Reporting Network
HUD Inspect: See if Publicly Subsidized Housing Units Passed or Failed Government Inspections
Across the country, publicly subsidized housing residents have discovered that passing scores on HUD inspections often don't match the reality of their living conditions. Look up housing complex scores near you.
Local Reporting Network
Trump Called Baltimore “Vermin Infested” While the Federal Government Fails to Clean Up Rodents in Subsidized Housing
Baltimore’s public housing is among the most dilapidated and dangerous in the country — nearly half of complexes failed inspection — and Trump just spent a week attacking the city on Twitter.
Local Reporting Network