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☔Some patchy showers with highs in the 50s. Sunset is at 8:05 p.m.

Today we bring you a follow-up for a GBH News investigation into the sometimes shady practices of solar power companies from Jenifer McKim, GBH’s investigative editor. Do you have experience with Sunrun Inc. or another company that you’d like to share? Please reply to this email or send a message to investigations@wgbh.org.

Four Things to Know

1. Massachusetts cut corners when looking for private companies to take care of food and transit at emergency shelters, a report from Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s office said. The report cites a company called Mercedes Cab Company/Pilgrim Transit getting a no-bid transportation contract that resulted in costs of $155 per trip, or $4.7 million in total. The auditor’s report also said Massachusetts could have negotiated for a flat rate with a contractor providing food, and overpaid on 9.6% of deliveries.

Housing Secretary Edward M. Augustus, Jr. responded saying the audit’s finding of “improper and unlawful methods” was “fundamentally wrong and unfounded.”

2. With fewer people in emergency shelters in Massachusetts, state officials plan to close temporary shelters in hotels and motels this summer, Gov. Maura Healey announced. The number of families seeking shelter is down to less than 5,000, with more people moving into longer-term housing.

“A hotel is no place to raise a family, and they are the least cost effective,” Healey said in a statement. “That’s why we implemented reforms to lower caseloads and the cost of the shelter system. We also promised to close all hotel shelters by the end of the year. I’m pleased that we are ahead of schedule, with more families getting jobs and moving to stable housing.”

3. Two Boston City Hall employees were fired after being arrested on domestic violence charges last week. Marwa Khudaynazar, who was chief of staff for Boston’s police oversight agency, and Chulan Huang, now-former neighborhood business manager for the city’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, had dated each other for about a year. They’ve both pleaded not guilty to assault and battery charges. Khudaynazar is also accused of assault and battery on a police officer.

Police reports say Huang told a police officer that Khudaynazar went on a date with Huang’s boss and “then they booked a hotel room and she came here to rub it in my face.” A city spokesperson said a review conducted in the days after the arrests found “no violations of laws or City workforce policies by any other city employees.”

4. The Toussaint L’Ouverture Cultural Center, where people can learn about Haitian culture, opened in Boston’s West End yesterday. “This is important for us to have because not only can we celebrate our legacy and our history and who we are, we can also combat many of those negative rhetorics, through our programming, and share it with people from all different walks of life,” said Marvin Mathelier, the center’s leader.

Mathelier said he hopes the center can help young Haitian-Americans connect with their history, even if they’ve never been to Haiti. Boston’s has the third-largest Haitian population in the country, after Miami and New York. Toussaint L’Ouverture, the center’s namesake, was a revolutionary leader you can learn more about him here.

Inside the story: Investigating corruption in solar power companies

By Jenifer McKim

Many homeowners are interested in installing solar panels to save money and help the environment. But with a growing industry, consumer complaints also are on the rise.

Consider the case of Colette Wildman in Carver, Massachusetts, who told GBH News that she leased solar panels from a company called Sunrun Inc., and her electric costs skyrocketed. When she couldn’t pay her bills, the company sued her for nearly $100,000.

Our investigation began when I received an email from a source saying Sunrun was increasingly filing debt-collection lawsuits in Massachusetts. The source thought I’d be interested because of our ongoing series,Debt Mills, focusing on how debt collectors are swamping state courts with lawsuits.

Companies have a valid expectation that people pay their bills. But consumer advocates say too often people don’t know their legal rights when they find themselves in financial trouble – pursued for debts related to old credit card bills, student loans, health care and more.

I started digging into the court documents and saw, indeed, that the California-based company called Sunrun had been suing a lot of people over the last few years over broken contracts. With the help of our intern, Jaze Lozada, we contacted individuals who had been sued to learn more. We spoke to about two dozen homeowners, including Wildman, who told us they didn’t get what they were promised after signing complicated contracts, in many cases leaving them with higher costs or systems that didn’t work at all.

We also partnered with student researchers at Boston University’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences’SPARK! Program to understand the scope of the problem. They collaborate with a company called Civera that collects government data to make it more searchable.

With their help, we were able to show that Sunrun had filed more than 420 lawsuits since 2023. We also found that Sunrun has been the focus of about 170 consumer complaints filed since 2023 with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Consumer Advocacy & Response Division. That was more than any other solar company in the state during that period, state records show.

Sunrun officials defended their business practices, saying their “subscription service is built around consumer protection and peace of mind.” They said “serious claims” are rare among their many Massachusetts customers and they “act swiftly” to resolve any serious matters. They questioned Wildman’s claims about increased costs.

In the end they also offered to dismiss the lawsuit they filed against her and another person we profiled, waiving their debts.

Since our multi-media investigation aired, we have heard from dozens more customers, many with similar complaints.

We are committed to continue to cover this story as well as others related to a state court system that is swamped with debt collectors. So many of our investigations begin with a tip from a source or a call from a person in need. If you have a story to tell, let us know.

Read more: Solar panel company accused of shady business in Massachusetts