InvestigateWest’s “Generation Homeless” project was made possible by a fellowship from Seattle University.
Reporter Carol Smith was a 2010 recipient of SU’s Center for Strategic Communications Family Homelessness Fellowship for independent public interest journalism focused on homelessness. Seattle University’s program was funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. There were six fellowships and eight scholarships awarded to journalists and students to pursue work on this topic.
Smith teamed with SU students Emily Holt and Cassandra Little, who interned on the project. Together, the IW team spent more than three months examining issues of family homelessness in Washington. Their multi-media series looks at family homelessness through the lens of young adults – one of the most under-recognized segments driving the surge in homeless families in this state, and at the impact of this trend on children, and school systems around the state. IW’s multi-media report includes a 9-minute radio documentary, five-minute video piece, interactive data map, and distribution of written stories to multiple media partners, regionally and nationally for online and print publication.
Click on this link to hear Smith's piece produced for news partner KUOW-FM. See our story on Seattlepi.com here. The YMCA's Puget SoundOff, a blog for and by youth and young adults, published pieces by Holt and Little on homelessness issues for the refugee community and job training for homeless young adults. We have more to come, and we'll keep you up to date about what our news partners are doing.
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