Poverty, Politics, and Profit

Guest: Laura Sullivan, NPR Investigative Reporter, Frontline Correspondent, Producer of the documentary “Poverty, Politics and Profit” There are millions of people across the country struggling to pay rent each month. As many as two-and-a-half million of them will be evicted this year, forcing them into homeless shelters or low-budget motels or substandard situations. One citizen, Nena Eldridge, uses water from buckets to wash and flush the toilet in her small bungalow in Texas because she can barely afford the rent on her monthly disability check and the water got shut off. She is featured in a new investigative report by NPR and PBS Frontline correspondent Laura Sullivan. Over nine months, Sullivan sought to answer the question: Why are a growing number of Americans like Eldridge in such dire housing trouble when the government spends $50 billion dollars a year on programs to help them? Sullivan’s investigation found a series of troubling answers related to politics, prejudice, lack of oversight and flat-out corruption.  Watch the documentary, "Poverty, Politics and Profit" here. Listen to Sullivan’s coverage of the housing tax credit on NPR here.