A collaborative Center for Public Integrity investigation into the patchwork safety net for homeless students has been recognized with a special citation in the Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Philip Meyer Journalism Award.
The contest honors “the best uses of social science research methods in journalism,” often sophisticated and groundbreaking data analyses. “Unhoused and Undercounted,” in partnership with The Seattle Times, Street Sense Media and WAMU/DCist, found a way to quantify what might seem unquantifiable: How many homeless students are falling through the cracks at school?
Public Integrity data reporter Amy DiPierro used multiple datasets about schools and child poverty, paired with a regression analysis, to come up with an estimate of students not getting help because their schools failed at the first step of the process: to identify them as homeless and therefore entitled to essential rights under federal law.
Her analysis estimated that roughly 300,000 students were missing out because they were never identified.
DiPierro and senior reporter Corey Mitchell’s resulting investigation laid out the consequences. In the U.S., homeless students are less likely to graduate from high school. Failing to graduate, in turn, increases the odds of homelessness as an adult.
The Seattle Times’ stories revealed that Washington state schools were suspending and expelling homeless students at higher rates, while innovations at one district helped narrow the homeless-student graduation gap.
Street Sense and WAMU/DCist showed that D.C. schools with the highest rates of student homelessness weren’t getting federal funding earmarked for these children.
Other local newsrooms that later joined the collaboration produced stories identifying both problems and solutions.
A more recent Public Integrity story in the series showed how Pennsylvania schools, approached for help by homeless families, suspected fraud and in some cases locked students out of class for weeks or even months.
“I’m humbled by the recognition this project has received and grateful to the many people — chief among them, former senior editor Jennifer LaFleur — who helped to develop the analysis,” DiPierro said. “I hope our work will draw policymakers’ attention to youth experiencing homelessness, a population too often overlooked in the public conversation about housing and public health.”
The Markup won first place in this year’s Philip Meyer contest for an investigation into internet disparities that leave some neighborhoods — lower income, more residents of color and historically redlined — paying the same amount of money for slow service that others pay for speedy connections.
Unhoused and Undercounted
Federal law requires that public schools assist homeless students to help break what could become an inescapable cycle of hardship. But many of the students who need that aid fall through the cracks.
The Unhoused and Undercounted series has also received the Institute for Nonprofit News’ large-division Breaking Barriers Award, a Dateline Award from the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Stewart B. McKinney Award recognizing contributions to the understanding of homelessness in the U.S., and shortlist status for the Sigma Award recognizing the world’s best data journalism.
Public Integrity’s journalists have been recognized with numerous other honors in recent months, including national Edward R. Murrow awards for Overall Excellence and Feature Reporting, the Paul Tobenkin Award, a Peabody Award nomination, a National Headliner Award, an Excellence in Financial Journalism award, a National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award, two finalist honors for the Shaufler Prize for reporting about underserved people, the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing’s “Best in Business” awards, the Gracie Awards honoring media produced by and for women, the Signal Awards recognizing the country’s best podcasts and two national Edward R. Murrow Awards, including one for overall excellence.
Founded in 1989, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Center for Public Integrity is one of the oldest nonprofit news organizations in the country and is dedicated to investigating systems and circumstances that contribute to inequality in the United States.