2022 Dennis Hunt Fund Projects

Amy Silverman, KJZZ and Arizona Daily Star

Silverman explored how Arizona residents with intellectual disabilities who live in community settings are at risk of injury or neglect because of a lack of oversight, poor pay and training for service providers and biases against people with disabilities. She collected 10,000 incident reports and analyzed them for patterns of abuse and neglect. As a community engagement grantee, she established a 10-person advisory council to help guide her reporting priorities. To better capture the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities, she provided disposable cameras to three dozen residents of group homes and asking them to take photos that capture their daily lives.

Newspaper Stories  [Note: Access the following stories using this sign-in information: Email: starcompt@yahoo.com, Password: password.]

Unsafe, Part One: Toddler born after rape of disabled mom now living with grandma

Unsafe, Part Two: For Arizona's disabled, abuse can happen anywhere, by anyone

Unsafe, Part Three: Prosecutions rare in Arizona when the victim is disabled 

Unsafe, Part Four: Unsafe: Pilot program teaches sex ed to Arizonans with disabilities

Unsafe, Part Five: What Arizona is doing – and not doing — to stop abuse of disabled

Radio Stories

Unsafe: Abuse and neglect of Arizona’s most vulnerable can happen anywhere

 

Yanqi Xu, Flatwater Free Press

Nebraska’s children are being sickened and killed by the state’s signature industry – agriculture – and the state’s unwillingness to regulate it. Excessive use of commercial fertilizers and manure generated from the cattle industry have led Nebraska to have among the highest levels of groundwater nitrates in the country. The state also has the seventh highest pediatric cancer rates nationwide, and experts increasingly believe the two are linked. Xu explorws the impact of agriculture and its byproduct, nitrate pollution, on the state’s residents, particularly children.

Stories

Part One: Our Dirty Water

Part Two: Quick Hit: Nebraska’s water is laced with nitrate. It’s likely harming our kids

Part Three: No nitrate police: State and local regulators can’t, or won’t, stop our drinking water from getting worse

Part Four: Clean water doesn't come cheap. Nebraska towns are shelling out millions to treat nitrate-laced drinking water.