I’m a reporter and researcher with a decade of experience covering housing policy and the welfare state. I’m keen on telling stories about who wields and abuses power, particularly in city governments. I worked as the housing reporter at NPR affiliate station WAMU 88.5/DCist, and was previously a columnist at Washington City Paper, where I wrote about housing policy and urban development. My work there won an award from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies for beat reporting. I’ve also covered politics on the national level for VICE, where I reported on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary and Trump administration. While living in Southern California, I worked as a print fact-checker and writer at Pacific Standard, where I covered national politics and the built environment.

I’m currently an MPP candidate at the University of Chicago, where I study public policy. My studies are particularly focused on municipal finance and energy & environmental policy. My work has been supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and SpotlightDC. It has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Mother Jones, The New Republic, VICE, Slate, GEN Mag, High Country News, the Philadelphia

Inquirer, and TalkPoverty, among other publications.

I’m originally from Miami and, no, I am neither a scion of the Baskin-Robbins empire nor the Morgan Baskin who ran for mayor of Toronto. In my free time, I’m making up for all the years I spent living at sea level by convincing someone to go on a hike with me.

Email me at morbaskin@gmail.com or follow my work @mhbaskin on Twitter.