Anthony Marcus had heard the same story about underage sex workers that most of us know — that they are brutalized by violent pimps and sold into sex slavery. But is that story correct?
Housing and Homeslessness
This story was produced by Joseph Geha as part of his participation in the California Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the Center for Health Journalism at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism.
“One important thing is to find your advocate,” veteran reporter John Gonzales told fellow journalists this week. “You got to find someone who is going to be there for you when you’re having trouble with access.”
Star Apartments in L.A.'s Skid Row is a dazzling vision of what homeless housing can look like. But it's not the model the city is banking on to meet its huge need for supportive housing for the region's 45,000 people without homes.
Silicon Valley is home to some of the world’s richest, most advanced companies. But underneath highways and along riverbeds, a scattered network of shantytowns endures. Santa Clara Co. has one of the most acute homelessness problems in the nation.
The government framework set up to protect Sonoma County renters from unsafe and unhealthy living conditions has developed such extensive cracks that it has left many tenants without public recourse save for the court system, where help often comes too late to make fixes or fight evictions.
In California's Sonoma County, some families face living conditions that include high levels of dangerous mold and other asthma triggers. When landlords don't act, problems can fester for years, leading to a host of health problems.
In California's Sonoma County, an alarming number of tenants live in housing so run down that it poses a risk to their health and safety. For Karla Orozco's family, the hazards included mold, rats and cockroaches, a broken heater, and sewage backups.
The effect of squalid housing on people’s health is difficult to determine in California's Sonoma County, since there is no study, stockpile of data or government agency that tracks illness in connection with living environments.
In reporting her series on mental illness in Shasta County, Alayna Shulman didn't find the data she was hoping for. Instead, she highlighted that lack of data in her story. It was one of several lessons she took away from working on the project.