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The Appeal •

Unhoused People are Being Killed at Alarming Rates

At least 88 unhoused people were killed in Maricopa County, Arizona, between 2021 and 2023. Experts say the deaths are a microcosm of a worrying national trend.

The night James Cruz disappeared, his sister knew something was wrong.

Cruz had been living in Tempe, Arizona’s ‘River Bottom’ homeless encampment for years. Known to his friends simply as “Cruz,” the 56-year-old was often seen riding around town on his bicycle or attending weekly community picnics on Tuesday evenings.

Cruz’s sister R...
Arizona Republic •

Hundreds of people experiencing homelessness died in Maricopa County last year. Will 2023 be worse?

Hundreds of people experiencing homelessness died in Maricopa County last year. Will 2023 be worse? The number of homeless deaths in Maricopa County jumped 42% between 2021 and 2022, according to the medical examiner’s office.

The peak temperature in Phoenix was 110 degrees the day Michael Felder died.

But no one knows exactly how hot it was in the tent where he was found. His body temperature was so high that it couldn’t be read with a thermometer, the medical examiner’s report said.

People
Arizona Republic •

'Waste of federal money': Arizona is losing thousands of affordable rentals. Here's how

'Waste of federal money': Arizona is losing thousands of affordable rentals. Here's how

Jason Edwards planned to call Marana Apartments home for many more years.

In 2018, the single father moved into a modest three-bedroom unit there with his two children, Zoey and Dwight, and their dog, Buddy.

The two-story complex of roughly 80 units, which sits off Interstate 10 in the town of Marana about 20 miles northwest of Tucson, is right down the street from his children's schools, a public pool and

Affordable housing crisis has 'waitlist shoppers' across US vying for few Arizona vouchers

Every day, Cecilia Arvizo would tell her five young children the same thing.

“We’re camping,” she would say.

In reality, it was the summer of 2020, and the family had recently been evicted from their Glendale home. They spent each night piled in the back of Arvizo’s Chevy Equinox, sleeping in parking lots around the city and bathing in a QuikTrip gas station bathroom while she struggled to find affordable housing.

After more than a year of putting her children to bed in the back of her SUV, A
Arizona Republic •

Permanent campers: Rising rents are pushing people to live on public lands

Permanent campers: Rising rents are pushing people to live on public lands The increase of campers has locals and forest officials on edge.

For the past few months, Morgan Rice has called Coconino National Forest home.

Rice and his girlfriend — along with their dog, Rio, and their cat, Kit — have been camping full-time in their 32-foot, 2006 Ford diesel van since August. When monthly rent for their one-bedroom apartment in Avondale increased from around $800 to over $1,300, the couple simply c
PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh •

Allegheny County Jail used the restraint chair more than any other PA county

Update (3/6/2021): At the March 4 Jail Oversight Board meeting, Warden Orlando Harper reported to the board about restraint chair use. It was a deviation from what he typically shares at these meetings in response to the board asking for more information on how the jail uses the device following the original PublicSource report below. He said the jail used the restraint chair 18 times in February. He promised that, at the April board meeting, he would provide the March count and include the numb

The True Cost of Court Debt: 376,000 PA drivers have their licenses suspended for unpaid traffic tickets. That’s more than the population of Pittsburgh.

Macon said he had his license restored in January. He started a payment plan though still has a court date for driving on a suspended license.

For months afterward, 34-year-old Macon woke up at 4 a.m. to catch three buses from his home in Wilkinsburg to the warehouse in Robinson where he worked at the time. He said the trip took up to two hours. Losing his license had other repercussions. He had planned to obtain a commercial driver’s license and apply for higher-paying jobs as a truck driver.
Cronkite News - Arizona PBS •

Mental health crisis is growing among migrants in Mexico

TAPACHULA, Mexico – The migrant crisis is evident everywhere in this city of 350,000 near Mexico’s southern border. Migrants queue up at dawn to apply for immigration documents. Sidewalks overflow with migrants peddling fried rice and flat bill hats. A park, once a popular tourist attraction, is a makeshift campground. The sounds of Spanish, Hatiatian Creole and other languages rise above the teeming streets. But one facet of the crisis simmers, invisible and largely ignored: The devastated ment
PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh •

Emails show Allegheny County district attorney’s office used trial of controversial facial recognition technology Clearview

“Dystopian” and “'Black Mirror'-esque” are among the ways critics have described Clearview, a facial recognition technology startup founded in 2016. The program’s ability to scrape photos off of the web and instantly aggregate information on just about anyone with an online presence, without their knowledge, has drawn the ire of privacy advocates, Democratic lawmakers and the same social media companies it relies on for data.

The system has been used by more than 600 law enforcement agencies in
PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh •

‘If your mom can go in and see it, so can the cops’: How law enforcement is using social media to identify Black Lives Matter protesters in Pittsburgh

A task force made up of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies has charged 32 people with crimes related to the recent Black Lives Matter protests in Pittsburgh. In a majority of the cases, charging documents show that law enforcement used social media as a tool to identify suspects and gather evidence on alleged crimes.

In early June, after protests in Downtown and East Liberty over the death of George Floyd, the City of Pittsburgh created the Damage Assessment and Accountability Ta
PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh •

15 former medical employees speak out about conditions at Allegheny County Jail

When David Sacks was hired in late August as a mental health specialist at Allegheny County Jail [ACJ], he looked forward to doing what he knows best: caring for individuals with mental illness.

Sacks arrived with over two decades of experience in correctional mental healthcare. He’d overseen the restricted housing unit for mentally ill inmates at SCI Greene, a state maximum security prison in Greene County, for 13 years. “I had great hopes of being able to help them provide a higher level of t
The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC •

The coming crisis in dementia care and why Pa. is woefully unprepared

Pat Loughney (right) cared for his wife, Candy, in their home until she became ill after eating medicated soap. Candy is one of 280,000 Pennsylvanians over the age of 64 living with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia. Read more

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Pat Loughney was sle