by Asia Fields, with Maya Miller, Nicole Santa Cruz and Ruth Talbot

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It’s not hard to find people who want to talk about cities dismantling homeless encampments and throwing away their belongings. In our reporting over the past year, we found that almost everyone we talked to who lived outside had been through a sweep.

More than 150 people shared their stories with us. Many had lost precious belongings or survival gear, keeping them in a cycle of hardship. Others told us about the barriers they faced trying to get their items back. These interviews allowed us to compare cities’ policies with the reality of what happens on the ground, opening new avenues for our team’s accountability reporting.

While finding stories was not difficult, we faced practical challenges, such as staying in touch with sources. To navigate those and ensure our reporting was as responsible as possible, we turned to the experts: people who experienced homelessness, service providers and key community members. We were also inspired by the work of local reporters who have thoughtfully covered these issues in their communities.

Now, we’re sharing what we learned — and a few ideas we didn’t get to — to help other journalists getting started on this important beat.

If you’d like to reach us, you can contact my.story@propublica.org.

You will likely face challenges staying in touch with sources experiencing homelessness. People may not always have cell service, their phones might be taken in sweeps and talking to a reporter may not be a priority when they’re focused on survival. This makes it even more important to have your reporting process figured out before conducting interviews. That way, people will know what they’re signing up for and you can get the information you need in one conversation.

Here are some topics you should discuss with your team, especially editors:

What verification process will you use? To include someone’s account in our stories, we decided we would need to find a record that a sweep occurred in a geographic area around the time they said, using city or county data, sweeps schedules, media reports, visual evidence or additional interviews. Familiarize yourself with your city’s records and data on sweeps to see how feasible it will be to verify certain information. Many cities won’t have detailed records that allow you to find your sources’ names or the items they describe.

What should you ask? It can be helpful to come up with a standard set of questions to ask and determine which are priorities if you have limited time with someone. Think about everything you might need, such as birthdates or months if you are going to include ages in case they change before you publish.

How will you handle requests for anonymity? We published first names only when people said the publication of their full names would pose safety risks. Even in those cases, we still knew our sources’ full names, which is our standard practice.

You should also determine if you will need to publish information about where someone is living, as it may raise safety concerns.

What if someone asks to use a street name? In two cases that

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