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Create A New Collection

Collections are versatile, powerful and simple to create. From a customized course reader to an action-guide for an upcoming service-learning trip, collections illuminate themes, guide inquiry, and provide context for how people around the worls are responding to social challenges.

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Add stories to your collection from your list of Favorites below, or add stories directly to a collection from Search or Discovery. Anytime you see the collection icon you can add a story. Just click the icon and follow the instructions on your screen.

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Solutions Story Tracker®

Welcome to a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems.

15,700 stories produced by 8,900 journalists and 2,000 news outlets from 89 countries. The stories cover responses in 192 countries, in 17 languages. This resource is made possible because of a growing movement of journalists who use solutions journalism to illuminate both problems and evidence-based responses to them.

Learn more about the Solutions Story Tracker.


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  • Can a new encampment strategy get people housed permanently? Two Seattle campers find different answers

    Scott Greenstone
    2022-07-22 20:41:59 UTC
    0

    July 17, 2022 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Mary Pilgrim is a 99-room converted-hotel shelter that provides people their own space while a case manager helps them find more permanent housing. While some have thrived in the shelter, which has provided housing for many people removed from homeless encampments and has strict hygiene and safety rules for residents, some residents and staff have encountered violence and there is a substantial amount of narcotics flowing through the shelter.

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  • Seattle Public Utilities' waste-pumping program has cut sewage spills from homeless people's RVs in half

    Scott Greenstone
    2020-11-29 22:40:19 UTC
    1

    November 28, 2020 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    To help those experiencing homelessness, Seattle Public Utilities workers travel around the city knocking on RV doors and asking occupants if they need their sewage tank pumped. Some RVs are broken down and occupants can’t get to a public dump site to dispose of their waste, so wastewater spills have increased over the years. However, since the pilot program was introduced in 2020, the spills from RVs have been cut in half.

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  • A COVID ‘silver lining': You can start drug treatment over the phone — and more people are starting to

    Scott Greenstone
    2020-08-19 15:03:46 UTC
    0

    August 10, 2020 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Although COVID-19 has taken a toll on the healthcare industry, some providers and clinics have figured out a way to eliminate barriers during this time for those seeking treatment. According to the director of the Behavioral Health Institute at Harborview Medical Center in Washington, the healthcare industry has seen "at least five years worth of progress happen in four months" due to the implementation of telemedicine. While this isn't a longterm replacement for in-person visits, many doctors are reporting a rise in patient appointments via this system.

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  • Coronavirus pushed Seattle to treat homelessness differently. Will those changes last?

    Scott Greenstone, Anna Patrick , Sydney Brownstone
    2020-07-07 15:11:52 UTC
    0

    May 03, 2020 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Prompted by the threat of COVID-19, Seattle and King County have rapidly taken steps to protect people experiencing homelessness with responses that activists have long sought. By moving hundreds of people out of crowded shelters into hotels, installing hygiene stations, and suspending the removal of encampments, officials scrambled to prevent the spread of the virus in ways that advocates hope will remain the policy after the crisis has passed. But the crisis has also gutted government budgets, and so permanent solutions may still be elusive.

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    • 10613

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  • More Seattleites are housing homeless people in their backyards, but it's hard to find the right fit

    Scott Greenstone
    2019-12-07 19:16:30 UTC
    0

    November 18, 2019 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    In Seattle, the BLOCK project started two years ago to build houses for those experiencing homelessness in backyards. While the project has slow-going - with only 9 matches between families and an unhoused person completed - that's in part because the non-profit is incredibly deliberate about its process in recognition of some controversy the idea has recieved.

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  • Prizes for sobriety: As Washington meth use rises, this treatment is one of few that works

    Scott Greenstone
    2019-08-23 19:11:08 UTC
    1

    August 22, 2019 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Rewarding patients for sobriety greatly increases the likelihood for recovery. The approach of contingency management creates new behaviors through incentives instead of punishment. Through the Seattle Department of Veteran’s Affairs, patients in an addiction program who test negative get to draw a prize and accumulate rewards the longer they stay sober. This alternative form of treatment has proven effective in boosting patient participation—and success—in addiction programs at the Seattle VA.

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  • Many Washington foster kids become homeless. Tennessee may have found a solution.

    Scott Greenstone
    2019-11-20 04:00:41 UTC
    0

    February 28, 2019 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Memphis, Tennessee

    Washington State looks to an innovative program in Tennessee that centers around developing strong relationships between homeless youth and their case workers. The Tennessee program, which offers youth in foster care a sense of stability and family, has helped many of its participants stay off the streets; now, King County, Washington is looking to copy the program to reduce youth homelessness in the area.

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  • What can Seattle learn from cities where homelessness has dropped?

    Scott Greenstone
    2019-05-18 17:17:35 UTC
    0

    January 24, 2019 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Cities that have had the largest decreases in homelessness in the past five years, including New Orleans, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Virginia Beach, have implemented a variety of approaches. Now, other cities are taking note and learning which might work for their specific situation.

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  • In a small Washington town with no youth shelters, one woman keeps kids off the streets

    Scott Greenstone
    2019-02-09 20:23:56 UTC
    0

    November 26, 2018 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    The Mason County Housing Options for Students in Transition (HOST) program is filling the county's gap of youth shelters, helping almost 200 homeless youth graduate from high school through personal relationships and screened host families. The program has show particular success in helping homeless youth from marginalized identities, including youth of color and LGBTQ+ identifying youth.

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  • Portland wanted to shelter every homeless family. The plan backfired, but it offers lessons for Seattle.

    Scott Greenstone
    2018-10-28 19:55:00 UTC
    0

    August 24, 2018 |

    The Seattle Times |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Portland, Oregon

    Portland, Oregon embraced the idea of not turning anyone away from homeless shelters a couple of years ago, but the well-meaning approach quickly ballooned in costs and ultimately was unable to fulfill its promise. However, the failure provides lessons for other cities considering similar initiatives - particularly, which kind of restraints and supports must exist to make "housing as a human right" more than just a slogan.

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Filter your search by the language of the story. As the Solutions Story Tracker grows, we are working to include more stories in more languages. Your story submissions can help! Submit stories here.
These factors identify the ways communities overcome the big challenges and help you see the insights. Learn more about the Success Factors here.

Solutions Journalism Around the World

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Solutions In Focus

Discover curated content about themes that matter to you, exclusively from the Solutions Story Tracker. Explore collections, resources and more.

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    Submission Guidelines

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Solutions Story Tracker® FAQ

  • Solutions journalism…
    • Describes a response to a problem and how it works.
    • Seeks to draw out insights that explain success or failure.
    • Presents the available evidence about the effectiveness of a response.
    • Explains the shortcomings or limitations of the response.
    Learn more.
  • The Solutions Story Tracker® is a curated, searchable database of solutions journalism stories — rigorous reporting about responses to social problems. We vet and tag every story in the Story Tracker, which offers an inspiring and useful collection of the thousands of ways people are working to solve problems around the world.

  • You can learn more about how we source, vet, and tag stories here, as well as how we share them. We also have video tutorials in Spanish and French that show how to use the Solutions Story Tracker to find what you need.

  • Story collections are curated by our staff or other partners to explore a theme, pattern, or trend via selected solutions stories and external resources. Some story collections focus on an in-depth exploration of a topic with solutions journalism; others highlight journalists and how they report on topics. Certain story collections include discussion questions and notes, so that educators and community discussion leaders can lead learners to fully engage with the stories.

  • The Solutions Story Tracker® is powered by user submissions. We encourage submissions from journalists, as well as from anyone who has an eye for solutions journalism. Click here to submit. (Why submit? So many reasons!)

  • You can submit a story directly on the Solutions Story Tracker®. You will be prompted to register or log into the Solutions Journalism Network website, if you are already logged in. (It is free to register!) Logging in allows you to track the status of your submissions under My Profile, as well as save your favorite stories, create story collections and story alerts, and access other helpful features of our website.

  • After you submit a story to us and assign it a topic, it is sent to one of our Solutions Story Tracker team members. Our team member evaluates the story for the four qualities of solutions journalism, and on the basics: The story must come from a news outlet and have a date and a byline. If the story meets our criteria, our team tags it accordingly and adds it to the database. If the story falls short of the mark, our team will include the reason why. We include stories in the Story Tracker that meet our standards of solutions journalism. Inclusion does not mean we support the initiatives, policies, organizations or approaches featured in those stories.

    Discover common reasons why a story may miss the mark for inclusion in the Solutions Story Tracker®.

    Learn more about the history of the database.

  • Solutions Journalism Network features these stories in the searchable database making them publicly accessible to anyone who wants to search for rigorous reporting on solutions to social problems. Any story that is added has the potential to make more impact than its original purpose. Added stories are used in journalism trainings, school curricula, research projects, and independent analysis on issue area trends. This now includes artificial intelligence tools, which are applied for educational value to find stories and support story vetting, as well as to extract insights from the stories. SJN has digital products and newsletters that give new life and exposure to the stories meeting people where they are at. Story data also is used to develop innovative tools to reach the general public with solutions journalism as well as some specific research projects requested by researchers. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of story data or added stories, please contact Lita Tirak.

  • News outlets determine whether all users can access their stories — and some limit the number of stories that anyone can view, or require a subscription. The majority of stories in the database can be accessed for free.

  • We work with journalists, academic researchers and others who feel that our database will support their research. We are especially interested in research that seeks to develop new insights about solutions journalism and its spread and its impact on social problems. Please complete all sections of the Data Request Form, and we will contact you to discuss your request in greater detail.

  • We do not fact-check the stories in the Solutions Story Tracker®. We do ensure that each story comes from a credible news source that has its own editorial infrastructure.

  • We worked with Tara Pixley and Jovelle Tamayo of the Authority Collective, who developed a guide for using equitable visuals. We follow this guide when choosing images for our website.

  • We welcome your feedback and additional questions. Please use this form to get in touch.

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