Illinois Answers Project

3 weeks ago | illinoisanswers.org | Binghui Huang

Binghui Huang is an investigative reporter covering economic and equity issues in Chicago. She previously covered health and business at the Indianapolis Star. With more than a decade in local news, she has uncovered dangerous carcinogenic pollution by a medical device maker, investigated worker abuses in RV factories and revealed shoddy work by workplace safety inspectors due to decades of underfunding and cuts to the department.

1 month ago | illinoisanswers.org | Binghui Huang

COOK COUNTY — The day before Christmas eve in 2023, Andrew Ciaccio was up all night trying to soothe his stomach pains. When he woke, he could barely sit up. Something was wrong. “It was pretty intense,” he recalled. “I was vomiting and really sweating and really feverish and just really in rough shape. [I] couldn’t even put shoes on.”Panicked, his partner looked up the nearest hospital: Advocate Masonic Hospital. Once Ciaccio  got to the hospital, a new panic set in.

1 month ago | illinoisanswers.org | Madison Hopkins |Meredith Newman

CHICAGO — A single mother in Kenwood changed jobs in order to find child care – even though it meant possibly working fewer hours and less pay. A couple in Park Ridge has paid so much for care they haven’t been able to start a college fund for their toddler. A family in Lemont delayed buying a home and decided against having as many children as they once hoped for.

1 month ago | illinoisanswers.org | Jim Daley

CHICAGO — On a recent Tuesday, dozens of people lined the block waiting their turn at a food pantry that shares a building with the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago (INVC). The long line was a stark reminder of the connections between poverty and violence cited by researchers and advocates, and a major part of why INVC and similar organizations include workforce development in their programming.

1 month ago | illinoisanswers.org | Laura Stewart

CHICAGO — LaShon Minter Williams is waiting for a letter that could arrive any day now — one that may force her to leave the home her family has owned for generations. She can’t afford to pay off the mortgage on the West Side home all at once. But she shouldn’t have to. Twelve years ago, her grandmother, Louise Minter, was tricked into a reverse mortgage scheme on the premise of home repairs.