Washington City Paper contributor Suzie Amanuel's series on housing issues in the District won the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' David Carr Award for investigative reporting. Amanuel's winning stories, which covered deceptive rental practices and unsafe conditions created by local slumlords, were all supported with funds by SpotlightDC.

“Suzie Amanuel’s investigation into landlords and the government agencies charged with holding them accountable in Washington, D.C., uncovered brazen schemes to rip off both tenants and taxpayers, how easy it was to manipulate new technology employed by local government, and how tenants suffered under the deplorable conditions and predatory pricing that resulted," wrote the judges. "She got the story by following curiousity with dogged shoe leather reporting.”