The Cascade PBS Investigations team got to stick around just long enough to see some of the impact from its reporting play out across the state in 2025. As in past years, our reporters traveled to distant corners of Washington to find out how money and policy decisions affect local communities. We visited disaster-ravaged towns, struggling mobile home parks, ranches transitioning to renewable energy and immigrant aid organizations.
Our investigative reporters published more than 30 stories over the past 10 months. We also contributed to numerous Newsfeed video pieces and collaborated on a four-part podcast series about barriers to green energy. Much of our accountability work focused on stories in rural news deserts or underrepresented communities that have lost daily news coverage in recent years. We saw our stories help change state laws, inform lawsuits and inspire policy reform.
After launching with grant support in early 2022 (at what was then known as Crosscut), the award-winning Investigations desk will go away this month as part of Cascade PBS’s decision to eliminate its in-depth, statewide written coverage in the wake of historic federal funding cuts.
Thank you to the readers and fellow journalists who supported our work over these past nearly four years. Before the lights go out, I wanted to once again share some of our most-read and highest-impact reporting from 2025.
Vulnerable communities
One of our most ambitious reporting efforts uncovered how property management companies have bought up large numbers of mobile home parks and then significantly raised rents amid the broader housing-affordability crisis. Going back to 2023, we have reported on how Port Orchard-based Hurst & Son LLC spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring these vulnerable communities and then pushed up rents while also issuing new fees. We expanded that coverage into Priced Out, a 30-minute investigative documentary in late 2024.
The documentary racked up more than 100,000 views in its first few weeks on YouTube and helped galvanize the public debate around mobile home housing instability. State lawmakers responded earlier this year by passing unprecedented limits on annual rent hikes, capping mobile home lot rent increases at 5% a year.
“We can’t express how thankful that we are that we have that stability, that we know what’s coming down the pike, and we can plan for it,” said Deb Wilson, a housing organizer and mobile home resident in Aberdeen.
State officials also announced $5.5 million in reimbursements to Hurst & Son park tenants over improper rent increases and excessive fees. Many of these complaints may not have come to light without the reporting of Farah Eltohamy, Mai Hoang, Jaelynn Grisso and Natalie St. John.
The Investigations desk also oversaw multiple years of collaborative reporting on the state’s efforts to reduce youth homelessness. Back in 2024, freelance reporter Elizabeth Whitman identified hundreds of thousands of dollars in “misspent” funding in a housing hotline program that resulted in the end of that contract. Further reporting this year outlined how several key network partners in the state’s recent efforts had suddenly closed or shuffled leadership.
More reporting on vulnerable communities:
- WA families struggle to rebuild after utility-sparked wildfires
- WA lawmakers walk back agreement to end child support garnishment
- Washington among the bottom of states in public defense funding
WA Workplace Watch
Reporter Lizz Giordano has anchored our worker safety coverage for more than two years, walking readers through the dangers of trench collapses and shining a light on government inspection practices. In late 2024, she investigated the minor work variances and youth labor oversight that failed a 16-year-old worker who lost both legs on the job near Vancouver, Wash. Giordano found that the company had allowed the teen to use a machine prohibited for minor workers and without proper supervision. School district officials also failed to intervene amid a number of other youth labor violations.
At least one state lawmaker cited Giordano’s coverage when pushing to pass House Bill 1644, which added significant new oversight on minor work permitting and higher penalties on violations of youth labor laws. The governor signed the bill into law in April. Youth worker permitting rules also changed at the Department of Labor & Industries.
State officials later requested felony charges for the first time ever against the construction company over its alleged youth labor violations, but the prosecutor declined to bring charges.
Our team saw local policy changes in Whatcom County earlier this month when officials adopted new oversight requirements on settlements after reporter Brandon Block last year uncovered a secretive $225,000 payout to a county employee over sexual harassment allegations. Several county officials expressed outrage they had been kept in the dark, and launched an internal investigation into the handling of the matter.
Giordano also reported out a series of stories about how the state workers’ compensation system pays out millions of dollars a year to retired doctors to conduct controversial exams that determine medical benefits or wage replacement. She also unpacked barriers and frustrations that can keep worker’s comp cases stuck in limbo for years.
More reporting on worker safety:
- Whistleblower alleges abuse and retaliation at Seattle City Light
- Wildland firefighters can wear masks after reports on smoke risks
- Seafarer’s death in Columbia River reveals murky maritime oversight
Immigration
As federal immigration enforcement has turned more aggressive, our team has looked for ways to hold those practices accountable. Reporters Farah Eltohamy and Jaelynn Grisso have monitored the state’s effort to conduct oversight of the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, triggering a lawsuit from the Center’s private operators to block the release of public records. The company later dropped its lawsuit after the state released redacted materials.
Eltohamy has worked to share insights on how aid groups have mobilized to assist detainees and monitor deportation flights. She also recently compiled a reader guide on navigating immigration court. Leer en español.
Our team partnered with InvestigateWest earlier this year to build a record of how county sheriffs across Washington planned to approach immigration enforcement. Many officials indicated they would abide by the state’s sanctuary laws, but several offered that they would assist immigration enforcement if asked.
The state Attorney General’s Office later cited Eltohamy’s reporting on sheriff responses as part of its lawsuit against the Adams County Sheriff’s Office over alleged violations of sanctuary laws.
Legacy of Accountability
Building on the long history of dogged reporting at Crosscut, the Investigations desk launched with a mission to track local and state spending of federal pandemic relief money — especially in undercovered news deserts. We spent three years tracking billions of dollars in aid through our WA Recovery Watch project. Lead reporter Brandon Block broke dozens of stories on little-known subsidies, aid barriers or funding delays.
Some of that complex and nuanced reporting took months or years to piece together, including a recent story on how Thurston County had lost nearly $1 million in rental aid to fraud despite tracking it back to a property management company run by a local philanthropist. Roots of that story can be traced to reporting Block first did on Thurston County rental aid in April 2022.
Block leveraged his experience covering state and federal government into reporting on delays to building out renewable energy and a four-part podcast series called “It’s Not Easy Going Green.”
All of this work takes a commitment to time and transparency. Our team has repeatedly pulled back the curtain on legal settlements, hidden investigations and government subsidies. We were proud to sign on to a recent effort to update the state’s public record rules, and have been honored to receive multiple awards from the nonpartisan Washington Coalition for Open Government for our efforts to improve access to information in the public’s interest.
Our team also won multiple regional awards earlier this year from the Society for Professional Journalists, including first place in investigative video, first place in investigative audio reporting and first place in hard-news feature writing. Of our Priced Out documentary, one judge wrote:
“This is the best investigative piece I’ve judged in years. The focus is on the people impacted and that’s what resonates with viewers. Thorough reporting. Well-produced. Nice work.”
In our nearly four years, we have sought to inform and empower our neighbors across Washington. Revisit our previous annual impact reports for 2024, 2023 and 2022.
We appreciate the hundreds of tips we received from sources and the kind feedback we heard from readers. Thank you to the regional news outlets that republished our work, followed up with localized reporting or wrote editorials based on our findings.
You all helped make this work matter.
