The Maine Monitor’s public health reporter Rose Lundy and former government accountability reporter Samantha Hogan were each awarded a 2024 Publick Occurrences accolade from the New England Newspaper & Press Association.
Lundy was recognized for her investigation into Maine’s residential care facilities and Hogan was recognized for her investigation into Maine’s probate courts.
NENPA presents the award to up to 16 projects in recognition of “the very best work that New England newspapers produce each year.”
Long-Term Challenge
Lundy’s “Long-Term Challenge” investigation, produced with the support of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, examined problems at Maine’s residential care facilities.
An investigation by The Maine Monitor and ProPublica of state inspection records underscored concerns about how these facilities are regulated. Analysis of monitoring and investigation reports found that residential care facilities were cited for nearly 700 violations from 2020 to 2022, but the state rarely imposed sanctions.
Lundy’s investigation also found that elopement — when a resident wanders out of a care home — is a real risk, particularly for people with dementia. But in the vast majority of cases in Maine, the facilities are never inspected and rarely sanctioned.
Residents wandered away from 48 residential care facilities at least 115 times, according to an analysis of records and a database of incidents reported to the health department by The Monitor and ProPublica. In 98 of the elopements, investigators conducted only a desk review or no investigation at all.
Advocates maintain the state is not doing enough to crack down on dangerous cases of abuse and neglect in residential care facilities. As one said: “To pussyfoot around resident neglect or abuse is essentially encouraging. It’s allowing it to happen.”
Maine’s Part-Time Court
Hogan’s investigation into Maine’s probate system — Maine’s Part-Time Court — found a number of issues with the courts responsible for adult guardianships, which restrict an adult’s right to make choices and instead delegate those decisions to another person.
The Maine Monitor sent a survey to the 16 county probate courts and received responses from 10 that revealed some probate courts do little to assess the fitness of a guardian before or after they are appointed. Some probate courts did not even know if the adults under guardianship were alive or dead.
Using Office of the Chief Medical Examiner data, The Monitor revealed that eight adults under public guardianship of the state had died in unexplained ways in the past three years. The news prompted immediate cries from state lawmakers for better oversight of guardians and renewed calls for reform to the probate courts that have been long overlooked despite serving thousands of Mainers.
Hogan’s investigation was produced with the support of the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Investigative Editing Corps and Report for America.
