Fears over spreading the coronavirus have forced some homeless shelters around the country to close or limit their capacity. In rural Southern Oregon, civic leaders told those in need to camp in the nearby woods. Now with wildfire season around the corner, law enforcement is relocating homeless people again.
Wildfires disproportionately impact historically marginalized people due, in part, to systems not designed with them in mind. This series was produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's 2019 California Fellowship. It won first-place news series in the regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and the Public Media Journalists Association contest.
Homelessness is often seen as an urban issue, but rural areas along the West Coast are also struggling with large homeless populations. Many of these areas don't have the resources for shelters, but even when they do, they're sometimes reluctant to build them.
I spent months investigating the owner of two local newspapers in Southern Oregon. What I found: financial backing from media conglomerate Sinclair Broadcast Company.
A community college planned to have students move into an old National Guard armory before testing for toxic lead dust. After my inquiries, the college postponed the move-in date, tested for lead dust, and found traces of it in the building.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Southern Oregon is the largest regional theater company in the U.S. So when it suffered a $2 million deficit one year, locals took notice. The company blamed wildfire smoke, but people working for the company and its financial statements reveal a more complex problem with management.
When a winter storm hit Elkton, Oregon, heavy winds tore thousands of Douglas Fir trees from their roots, blocking all roads leading out of town. The town lost all electronic communication. That meant no cell service, no internet, no calling 911 for help. Elkton was basically on its own for days.
A wildfire evacuation shelter near Redding, California, became overwhelmed with people refusing to separate from their pets, so volunteers set up a warehouse where people could sleep next to their creatures and get free vet services.