WLRN News’ investigations team has been honored with a prestigious national award for its inaugural project, Unguarded, a 2023 series delving into the Guardianship Program of Dade County’s repeated sales of incapacitated people’s homes to a politically connected company, which then resold the properties for profit.
Unguarded has won the top award for audio investigations from large newsrooms from Investigative Reporters and Editors, a national professional membership organization. Reporters Daniel Rivero and Joshua Ceballos, as well as editors Jessica Bakeman, Sergio Bustos and Matheus Sanchez, were named in the honor.
The three-part series exposed a real estate scheme affecting older adults and people with disabilities and mental illnesses. The series revealed that the taxpayer-funded nonprofit Guardianship Program of Dade County, which is entrusted with caring for vulnerable Miami-Dade residents declared "incapacitated" by the courts, routinely sold its wards' homes to the same politically connected companies. Those companies then resold the homes for profit, raising serious questions about whether the nonprofit met its fiduciary duty to its wards.
Immediately in response to WLRN’s reporting, Miami-Dade County announced an investigation into the Guardianship Program's real estate transactions. The county initially halted the distribution of taxpayer funds to the program. Later, the county resumed payments, but prohibited any property sales until the conclusion of the ongoing investigation.
The City of Miami commission later voted to terminate its City Attorney, with commissioners citing WLRN's reporting as among the explanations.
One of the companies implicated in the reporting, Gallego Homes, has since been dissolved.
Further, the investigation in part prompted a U.S. Senate hearing on proposed reforms to guardianship programs nationwide. WLRN's reporting was also highlighted for millions of national listeners of NPR's 1A.
Recognizing watchdog journalism
IRE has been recognizing the best of watchdog journalism in the country since 1979, and this year’s winners were selected from more than 450 entries.
Judges provided the following comments regarding why Unguarded was considered among the best investigative journalism in the country last year: “Reporters uncovered a scheme where a government-funded nonprofit entrusted to care for adults deemed incapacitated by the courts was selling their homes for below-market value to companies connected to the Miami city attorney, which were then flipping them for a profit. The series had an immediate impact, with the county launching an investigation into the program and Miami firing the city attorney.”
"In a difficult year for journalism, the winners of the 2023 IRE Awards give us hope,” said Lily Jamali, chair of the IRE Awards contest committee, in announcing the winners and finalists. “The work of these dogged journalists reflects an ongoing commitment to truth and accountability against a backdrop of dwindling industry resources. Entries showed the powerful impact that can come from combining investigative reporting techniques with vivid storytelling."
WLRN News’ investigations team launched last year, led by Bakeman and Bustos. Unguarded was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
"The WLRN newsroom is proud and honored to have our brand of investigative journalism recognized by such a prestigious group of our peers in the business and supported by our loyal WLRN donors and contributors," said Bustos, who is WLRN’s VP for News. "But more importantly to us is that Danny and Josh's exhaustive reporting shined a bright light on an issue that impacted some of our community’s most vulnerable residents."
WLRN plans to expand the investigation team this year.
