Current：Home > ScamsInside Climate News Freelancer Anne Marshall-Chalmers Honored for her Feature Story Showing California Wildfires Plague Mobile Home Residents -Secure Horizon Growth
Inside Climate News Freelancer Anne Marshall-Chalmers Honored for her Feature Story Showing California Wildfires Plague Mobile Home Residents
View
Date：2025-04-14 21:50:52
The Society of Environmental Journalists announced last week that Anne Marshall-Chalmers, a freelancer for Inside Climate News and former ICN reporting fellow, won first place for feature writing in its 22nd annual awards for Reporting on the Environment for her story on the convergence of California’s wildfire and affordable housing crises.
Marshall-Chalmers, who is based in the Bay Area, made regular trips to the scene of the Cache fire in Clearlake, California to develop relationships with her main subjects, Susan Gilbert and Lorraine Capolungo, who both lost their mobile homes in the blaze. Interviews with government officials, first responders and researchers rounded out her reporting. Her months of interviewing, collecting documents and visiting the scene of the fire culminated in the Inside Climate News story, Mobile Homes, the Last Affordable Housing Option for Many California Residents, Are Going Up in Smoke.
“Anne Marshall-Chalmers investigates a much-overlooked aspect of the human and housing cost of wildfires in California,” the judges wrote. “Her engrossing and beautifully crafted lede engages the reader from the very first line and sets the tone for a narrative that interweaves the personal and universal, as well as thoroughly researched facts about wildfires near mobile home communities.”
In her story, Marshall-Chalmers wrote “mobile homes lay bare a warming planet’s collision with a shortage of affordable housing. Though perceived as a shelter of last resort, mobile homes house 22 million people, and mobile home parks provide three times the number of affordable housing units than the nation’s public housing. Most mobile home residents are low or very low income. Households are disproportionately non-white, seniors and families with small children. Typically, residents of mobile home parks rent the land they live on, leaving them with no claim to growing property value and no right to return should disaster strike.”
But it was her detailed description of the struggles of her subjects before, during and after the fire that the judges found made the story stand out.
“The narrative voice and choices keep the reader captivated until the end and have us all asking questions that we may not have asked before,” the SEJ judges wrote.
Share this article
veryGood！ (57)
Related
- Working Well: When holidays present rude customers, taking breaks and the high road preserve peace
- Saudi Arabia formally informs FIFA of its wish to host the 2034 World Cup as the favorite to win
- 49ers prove Cowboys aren't in their class as legitimate contenders
- In a new picture book for kids, a lot of random stuff gets banned
- Person accused of accosting Rep. Nancy Mace at Capitol pleads not guilty to assault charge
- What we know about the Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel's response in Gaza
- How long have humans been in North America? New Mexico footprints are rewriting history.
- A perfect day for launch at the Albuquerque balloon fiesta. See the photos
- Opinion: Gianni Infantino, FIFA sell souls and 2034 World Cup for Saudi Arabia's billions
- Panthers OL Chandler Zavala carted off field, taken to hospital for neck injury
Ranking
- Retirement planning: 3 crucial moves everyone should make before 2025
- Senior Taliban officials visit villages struck by earthquake that killed at least 2,000 people
- What is Hamas? Militant group behind surprise Israel attack has ruled Gaza for years
- 'I just want her back': Israeli mom worries daughter taken hostage by Hamas militants
- Whoopi Goldberg is delightfully vile as Miss Hannigan in ‘Annie’ stage return
- Simone Biles finishes with four golds at 2023 Gymnastics World Championships
- The Asian Games wrap up, with China dominating the medal count
- Bills LB Matt Milano sustains knee injury in 1st-quarter pileup, won’t return vs Jaguars
Recommendation
Head of the Federal Aviation Administration to resign, allowing Trump to pick his successor
Powerful earthquakes kill at least 2,000 in Afghanistan
German conservative opposition wins 2 state elections, with far-right making gains
Some GOP candidates propose acts of war against Mexico to stop fentanyl. Experts say that won’t work
The FBI should have done more to collect intelligence before the Capitol riot, watchdog finds
'There is no tomorrow': Young Orioles know the deal as Rangers put them in 2-0 ALDS hole
Hamas attack on Israel thrusts Biden into Mideast crisis and has him fending off GOP criticism
Parked semi-trucks pose a danger to drivers. Now, there's a push for change.