August 16, 2025 · View in browser

Sometimes, seeing and understanding those results takes years; sometimes, days or weeks.  I hope reading some of the below updates makes your Saturday a little brighter. And if you crave more examples of how our reporting is changing lives, good news: We just released our latest impact report, which covers everything from our 2025 Pulitzer Prize to the Justice Department citing our reporting in lawsuits against six of the nation’s largest landlords.

Are you one of the nearly 103 million people in the U.S. who rents your housing? Because of an investigation by ProPublica reporter Heather Vogell, hundreds of thousands of renters may be better protected from soaring rents. 

In February 2022, Vogell published an investigation into how giant private equity firms buy apartment buildings en masse and squeeze them for profit. One of the key players was Greystar, a private-equity-backed firm that, over the past decade, has snapped up rentals by the thousands and became the largest landlord in America. Greystar manages nearly 950,000 apartments nationwide.

Another investigation from Vogell showed how Greystar was using rent-setting algorithms that aren’t anti-competitive from RealPage, a Texas-based software-maker. RealPage’s algorithm helped landlords decide rents in a way that legal experts said could result in cartel-like behavior, such as price-fixing. 

Last week, the Department of Justice announced that Greystar has agreed to stop using algorithmic rent-setting software that has been deemed anticompetitive. The deal still must be approved by a judge. The agreement is part of a proposed settlement with the Justice Department to resolve claims by federal authorities that the company had colluded with other landlords to raise rents in cities across the country.

Greystar did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement and said in a statement that it “firmly believes that its use of RealPage’s revenue management software complies with all applicable laws.” RealPage declined to comment. 

In January, a RealPage executive called the federal case “flawed” and said the company had already changed its software to remove nonpublic data even though it believed the technology was legal and “pro-competitive.”

More from this investigation:

• When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord

• How Your Shadow Credit Score Could Decide Whether You Get an Apartment

• Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could be Why.

In late July, ProPublica reporter Abe Streep published a story that found the U.S. Forest Service had more than 4,500 vacancies within its wildland firefighting program. The empty positions reflected a vacancy rate of around 27%, according to internal data from the Forest Service obtained by ProPublica. At the time of publication, more than 1 million acres were burning across 10 states.

Publicly, the Forest Service says it has hired enough wildland firefighters. When asked to support its claims that the agency’s fire service is fully staffed, a spokesperson wrote: “The Forest Service is fully prepared and operational to protect individuals and communities from wildfires. The Forest Service has over 19,000 workers, both in and out of the Fire and Aviation Management group, who hold incident response qualifications.”

The documents we obtained also show internal concern among top officials, including the chief of the Forest Service, who wrote in a letter to high-ranking officials in the agency that “the demand for resources outpaces their availability.” 

This week, Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California and the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is demanding the discrepancy between public statements and our reporting be accounted for. 

In a letter sent to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday morning, Garcia wrote, “The Trump Administration’s staffing decisions are exacerbating an already dire situation: The Forest Service’s firefighting capacity has been dangerously hampered by Department of Government Efficiency and Trump Administration layoffs, deferred resignations, and other early retirements and resignations just as climate change is extending the fire season.”

We’ll keep you posted on what happens next. 

Since March 2024, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson has been reporting on New York’s guardianship system. More than 28,000 adults in that state are under the care of legally appointed guardians, but the system is in shambles. Weak oversight has enabled guardians to abuse, neglect and defraud the very people they are supposed to care for.  

Pearson’s reporting showed how one woman, Judith Zbiegniewicz, lived in squalor, yet every month, her legally appointed guardian was paid $450 from her bank account. That story prompted the editorial board of the Albany Times Union to write about the issue, saying it was time for New York’s leaders to “either argue that the current statute is working just fine or begin to work toward a set of solutions to make it function as its framers intended.”

In April 2024, legislative leaders told ProPublica they would consider guardianship reforms so Albany “can adequately improve a failing system that is exploiting too many vulnerable New Yorkers while enriching the pockets of a few.” 

Then another story from Pearson revealed how judges failed to police one of New York City’s most prolific guardians, despite repeated warnings. A few months later, a former ward we wrote about and her husband received nearly $13,000 in compensation.

In September, a leading city lawmaker introduced legislation calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature to reform guardianship, citing ProPublica’s work. 

This week, a task force appointed by Hochul is recommending that the state spend at least $15 million per year and create state-level oversight to bolster its guardianship system. If adopted, the plan would represent a major change in how the state government cares for some of its most vulnerable residents.

If that happens, we’ll be sure to let you know. 

Thanks for reading.