JULY 2022
“His PTSD, and My Struggle to Live With It,” The New York Times Magazine, July 10
After my partner was brutally beaten on the street, I became one of the many thousands of Americans caring for someone with post-traumatic stress disorder — and our relationship changed forever.
JULY 2021
“’We Don’t Deserve This’: New App Places US Caregivers Under Digital Surveillance” The Guardian, July 28, 2021, with Alexandra Mateescu, Automating Care series.
MARCH-AUGUST 2021
With Alexandra Mateescu, consulting editor on the Automating Care series at The Guardian.
OCTOBER 2019
“Zombie Debts are Hounding Struggling Americans. Will you be next?”
The Guardian, Automating Poverty series
NOVEMBER 2018
“Algorithms Designed to Fight Poverty Can Actually Make It Worse”
Scientific American, Volume 319, No 5 (pp 68-71).
Special issue, “The Science of Inequality”
MAY 2018
“We created poverty. Algorithms won’t make that go away.”
The Guardian, Opinion
JULY-AUGUST 2018
“High-Tech Homelessness”
American Scientist
Automated algorithms are designed to more efficiently match the unhoused with shelter, but such databases leave the poor vulnerable to privacy and rights breaches.
JANUARY 2018
“The Digital Poorhouse”
Harper’s Magazine
When a very efficient technology is deployed against a scorned out-group in the absence of strong human rights protections, there is enormous potential for atrocity.
JANUARY 15, 2018
“A Child Abuse Prediction Model Fails Poor Families”
WIRED Magazine
Proponents of the Allegheny Family Screening Tool insist that removing discretion from call screeners is a brave step forward for equity, transparency, and fairness in government decision-making. But the AFST doesn’t remove human discretion; it simply moves it.
AUGUST 29, 2016
My Drowning City Is a Harbinger of Climate Slums to Come
The Nation
Federal legislation is hastening the collapse of working class neighborhoods near water.
MAY 27, 2015
Want to Cut Welfare? There’s an App for That.
The Nation
Conservatives explore cutting benefits behind a high-tech facade.
April 22, 2014
How Big Data Could Undo Our Civil-Rights Laws
The American Prospect
From “reverse redlining” to selling out a pregnant teenager to her parents, the advance of technology could render obsolete our landmark civil-rights and anti-discrimination laws.
February 14, 2014
How Big Banks Are Cashing In On Food Stamps
The American Prospect
Many benefit programs have gone high tech with debit cards and J.P. Morgan Chase and others are making a pretty penny charging users fees. What is there to be done?
January 15, 2014
Want to Predict the Future of Surveillance? Ask Poor Communities.
The American Prospect
Marginalized groups are often governments’ test subjects. Here are a few lessons we can learn from their experiences.
Virginia Eubanks 