Boston Globe metro columnist Yvonne Abraham on Wednesday won a prestigious national award from the Poynter Institute for her “poignant and insightful” series on the plight of homeless families in Massachusetts who, despite rock-bottom circumstances, are denied shelter in a right-to-shelter state.
The Mike Royko Award for Commentary and Column Writing is named for the legendary Chicago columnist and is among the most coveted in the news business. It recognizes excellence in writing by an individual expressing a personal point of view and is sponsored by the Chicago Tribune.
The winning entries, six columns published weekly from Nov. 25 through Dec. 23, explored the challenges of navigating eviction courts and the state’s emergency shelter program, and entered the worlds of families living in hotels, struggling to qualify for shelter while “stuck in the special hell between too-poor and not-poor-enough.”
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The judges praised Abraham’s “poignant and insightful” commentary writing.
“Abraham’s columns are deeply reported and eloquently written,” the judges said. “The result is an empathetic, yet respectful look at the everyday struggles of those without permanent homes, trying to survive when often the complicated bureaucracy, which Abraham skillfully notes and calls out, makes that nearly impossible.”
Abraham joined the Globe in 1999 and held a wide range of reporting positions from national and local politics to immigration before she was named a metro columnist in 2007.
“Yvonne is so deserving of this recognition, for the work she does every day, but especially for this package of stories,” the Globe’s editor, Nancy Barnes, said. “Yvonne invested an enormous effort of reporting time to get to know, intimately, some of our residents struggling to find housing, their personal challenges, and the endless obstacles the system puts in their way. She told these stories with empathy, wrote with eloquence, and delivered with a punch that only a skillful columnist can deliver.”
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Abraham said the winning columns were rooted in showing “how these families are getting ground up by the system with few taking notice.”
“I’m very grateful to these families for trusting me with their stories, and for giving readers a window into how impossible life can be if you’re unlucky enough,” she said Wednesday. “I hope the people who make the decisions that affect their lives see how hard they are trying to lift themselves up, and lower the barriers that make it more difficult.”
Abraham also said she was “grateful to Poynter for recognizing that their stories are worth telling, and to the Globe for giving me the time and space to tell them.”
The winning entries are here:
For some families, the right to shelter isn’t a right at all
They’re poor, but not poor enough to qualify for emergency housing in Massachusetts
When rock bottom isn’t low enough
These advocates see the pain of homeless families up close every day. It takes a toll.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.