The Washington monthly's Monthly Journalism Award - to 'Broken Homes,' a New York Times article by Clifford J. Levy - Brief Article

Washington Monthly, June, 2002

CLIFFORD J. LEVY

"Broken Homes"

The New York Times, April 28-30, 2002

For this three-part series exposing neglect and malfeasance at private homes for the mentally ill in New York City, Clifford J. Levy waded through more than 5,000 pages of state inspection reports, performed 200 interviews with workers, residents, and family members, and made more than three dozen visits to homes where 946 residents (326 of them under 60) died between 1995 and 2001. The resulting series paints an appalling picture of squalid living conditions and sordid mistreatment. Levy chronicles hundreds of suicides and unaccounted deaths, workers' falsification of records, residents prostituting themselves and selling drugs from their rooms, patients given the wrong drugs by ill-trained workers, and thousands of dollars of unnecessary procedures performed on residents and charged to the state. Levy's work exposes the broken system that allows for-profit homes to manage and house the mentally ill with little or no government scrutiny.