Cary Spivak and Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel identified the four inner city neighborhoods hit the hardest by the mortgage meltdown in Milwaukee and zeroed in on the lending practices.  The reporters found that many of the people who lost homes to foreclosure never should have gotten loans in the first place. But lenders eagerly wrote loans to people despite poor credit ratings, numerous bankruptcies and even criminal convictions for financial crimes such as forgery and food stamp fraud.

In an effort to break up large-scale public housing projects riddled by crime, Section 8 vouchers have created the opportunity for low-income families to move into suburbs, according to a report by Gregory Korte of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The opportunity for a more stable community is not without its challenges, and many Section 8 tenants feel they were unprepared for the responsibilities suburban life. “That’s the fundamental flaw in Section 8, says Don Driehaus, housing authority chairman. Instead of a government-run social program, it’s now a loosely regulated service provided by more than 3,600 different landlords – some good, some bad and some criminal.” Critics of the program, including Driehaus, would like to see an end to the vouchers and a return to “more traditional public housing.”

Mitch Weiss of the Associated Press found that the system set up to protect consumers from rogue appraisers following the savings and loan crisis nearly 20 years ago has failed, playing a major role in America’s housing collapse. His six-month investigation showed more than two dozen states and territories are violating federal law by failing to investigate and resolve complaints about real estate appraisers within a year. As a result, hundreds of appraisers accused of wrongdoing are allowed to stay in business. Weiss also found that the only tool federal regulators have to force states into compliance is so draconian that it has never been used.

Mary Zahn and Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed the rising number of injuries and serious violations at nursing homes in the state of Wisconsin. The reporters reviewed more than 20,000 pages of documents and built their own database of accidents, injuries and deaths spanning the past 3 ½ years. They found that the increase in injuries is occurring during a time of dramatic worker turnover in the nursing home industry and that out-of-state corporations own a disproportionate rate of homes cited over and over for problems. The two-part series includes a searchable database of all homes that have received actual harm or immediate jeopardy citations from regulators since Jan. 1 2005.

CBS News‘ Armen Keteyian reports that Congress is investigating the manufacturers of the trailers used as emergency housing in the Gulf following Hurricane Katrina. Employers of Gulf Stream Coach, which received $522 million for 50,000 trailers following the storm, said they knew that the trailers were toxic. The increased production volume forced the company to use cheaper materials, resulting in formaldehyde contamination in over 35,000 of the trailers.

An investigation by Jason Grotto, Laurie Cohen and Sara Olkon of the Chicago Tribune reveals the realities of a 10-year plan to rehabilitate Chicago’s public housing. The investigation found “that almost nine years into what was billed as a 10-year program, the city has completed only 30 percent of the plan’s most ambitious element — tearing down entire housing projects and replacing them with new neighborhoods where poor, working-class and wealthier families would live side by side.” Thousands of families remained displaced, and some believe it may take another decade before hundreds of additional units are completed.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama got a discount on the $1.32 million loan for his Chicago mansion, obtaining an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. Washington Post investigative reporter Joe Stephens found that, compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama’s rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

A three-part series by The Washington Post dissects the current credit crisis. The series looks at how forces aligned to create “the biggest American housing boom since the 1950s,” the stress on the market when new homes went unsold and foreclosures mounted, and finally how the overall impact of the housing market implosion.

An investigation by AmyJo Brown, of the Pine Bluff Commercial (Pine Bluff, Ark.), revealed that over $500,000 in federal money earmarked for low-income housing was misspent by Progressive Southeast Arkansas Housing Development Corporation, a local nonprofit leading the city’s low-income housing development project. “The records show that of the 47 new, low-income houses and four apartment complexes Progressive’s managers said they would have finished or at least begun building by 2009, they have completed and sold only six single-family homes.” Since the story ran, a federal investigation has been launched, and the head of the city department has been removed from overseeing the federal money.

An investigative series by The Columbus Dispatch analyzed the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis in central Ohio, as well as the future impact to the region. “A wave of foreclosures during recent years has pushed property values downward for the first time in decades,” the Dispatch analysis found.