Read more about the article Blighted Housing: A look inside eight migrant farmworker ‘camps’Photo by Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
A bedroom for migrant farmworkers at the Nightingale facility in Rantoul, Ill., on July 29, 2014.

Blighted Housing: A look inside eight migrant farmworker ‘camps’

State inspection records highlight substandard conditions inside eight migrant farmworker housing sites.

Continue ReadingBlighted Housing: A look inside eight migrant farmworker ‘camps’
Read more about the article Blighted Housing: Visa program requires housing inspections for non-U.S. farmworkersPhoto by Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
A resident walks down a hallway inside the Nightingale migrant labor camp in Rantoul, Ill., in July 2014. Companies in Illinois received approval for only five H-2A workers from October to December 2015.

Blighted Housing: Visa program requires housing inspections for non-U.S. farmworkers

Hundreds of migrant workers come to the United States from Mexico and other countries with special H-2A farm visas, but they make up only a fraction of the total number of migrant farmworkers.

Continue ReadingBlighted Housing: Visa program requires housing inspections for non-U.S. farmworkers
Read more about the article Blighted Housing: Much of Missouri migrant farmworker housing left out of inspection programPhoto by Robert Holly/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
Migrant farmworkers help plant, pick and process the food that ends up on kitchen tables. Under current Missouri policies, only housing for foreign migrant farmworkers with H-2A visas is required to undergo inspection.

Blighted Housing: Much of Missouri migrant farmworker housing left out of inspection program

The state and local agencies responsible for overseeing migrant farmworker housing vary from state to state. Here's a detailed look at how oversight works in Missouri.

Continue ReadingBlighted Housing: Much of Missouri migrant farmworker housing left out of inspection program
Read more about the article Bikes stolen on campus seldom recoveredDarrell Hoemann/CU-CitizenAccess.org
Matt Crosby, manager of Neutral Cycles, works on a bike by the map of bike thefts in the shop on campus in Champaign on Monday, March 28, 2016.

Bikes stolen on campus seldom recovered

If a bike is stolen from a University of Illinois student on the Urbana-Champaign campus, there is little chance the bike will be recovered. In fact, 95 bikes worth about $27,000 in total were reported stolen in 2015 and only 16 — about $3,600 worth — were recovered, according to university police.

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Read more about the article A new coal mine in town: environmental, economic questions still lingerphoto by Darrell Hoemann/CU-Citizen Access.org
Jonathan Ashbrook, left, on his property with Sue and Tom Smith near the proposed site of the Sunrise coal mine outside Homer, Ill. The three are members of a grassroots organization, Stand Up To Coal, opposing the mine. Ashbrook's family has owned land near the seasonal creek known as The Olive Branch for the past 140 years. The original mine permit stated it would use local field drainage tiles for mine discharge, which empties in the Olive Branch about a mile from the mine site.

A new coal mine in town: environmental, economic questions still linger

Keith Rohl remembers the day he was asked to lease the coal rights to his farmland in Homer, Illinois. It was 2009, a wet year for the crops, when he was lined up at the grain elevator with his neighbors hearing about the proposed Bulldog Mine for the first time. “The neighbors were all talking about, ‘You sell your coal rights, and you get to farm your land on top. You’re going to have all kinds of money and everything.’ And I thought ‘Boy, that sounds great to me, and I was ready to sign up,’ ” he said.

Continue ReadingA new coal mine in town: environmental, economic questions still linger