When we first met Aaron Maloy 20 years ago, he was fresh out of college, and still emerging from a life spent in foster care from the age of 12. Today, he’s a nurse practitioner, with his own practice in Plymouth. But his master’s-level credential makes him an outlier. People who have been in foster care are some of the most educationally disadvantaged in the United States, even on Cape Cod.

Experts point to the COVID-19 pandemic as the point when our region's housing problem became a crisis. And they say we can’t build our way out of it.

CAI's John Basile looks into public transportation on Cape Cod. Is it serving those who need it?Twenty years ago, "Two Cape Cods" found that public transit service was not adequate. Has it improved?

Tribal housing is full and has a long waitlist. The tribe's homeless shelter is closed for renovations. That leaves some Mashpee Wampanoags with few options for housing.

Twenty years ago, homeless prevention advocates came forward with a plan to end homelessness on the Cape. CAI documented their effort in a series called Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands. It was a bold and optimistic plan. But when revisiting the plan in a new reporting series 20 years later, we found that advocates were not anticipating a global pandemic.

It’s been 20 years since CAI produced a series of news stories that shined a light on a problem Cape and Islanders know only too well — that many year-round residents struggle here. The series, “Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on Cape and Islands,” attracted national attention to Cape Cod’s issues, winning the highest award in broadcast journalism, the Columbia-DuPont Award.