The Margins

Solutions journalism on displacement, housing, and water
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Solutions Journalism

Reporting from
the edges of the
resettlement system.

Field research and investigative reporting on displacement, housing access, and water infrastructure — with a focus on solutions that are being built right now, and why they're not spreading fast enough.

Why this matters
50M
Bangladeshis projected to be displaced from coastal areas by 2050 due to river erosion linked to sand mining
$8.57
Annual cost per person of TENG-UV water disinfection — a solution that requires no grid or chemicals
2,500
Houses swept away in Vietnam's Mekong Delta between 2018 and 2022 due to illegal sand dredging
Investigative Reporting

Field dispatches and data investigations on forced migration

From illegal sand cartels in Southeast Asia to refugee housing gaps in Los Angeles — grounded in fieldwork and primary sources.

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Technology Advocacy

A $8.57/person water solution that NGOs aren't using yet

TENG-UV disinfection works without a power grid, costs under $9 per person per year, and has peer-reviewed evidence behind it. Here's why it should be in every resettlement toolkit.

See the technology →

Latest Reporting

Reporting

Investigations, field dispatches, and data-driven analysis on displacement, housing, and water access.

Technology Advocacy · TENG-UV Water Disinfection

Clean water for refugee families. No grid required.

Triboelectric nanogenerator ultraviolet (TENG-UV) disinfection is a peer-reviewed, human-powered water purification technology that works in off-grid settings. It produces no chemical byproducts, requires no external power source, and costs a fraction of conventional solutions. Refugee resettlement organizations should be using it. Most aren't. Here's why they should.

$0
per person
per year

How it works

TENG-UV harnesses mechanical motion — walking, pressing, or turning — to generate electrical charge through the triboelectric effect. That charge powers UV-C LEDs that deactivate pathogens in water without chemicals. The device is self-contained, portable, and requires no batteries or grid connection.

Why it fits resettlement

Newly resettled refugee families often live in housing with inconsistent utilities and limited access to clean drinking water. Conventional filtration requires replacement cartridges. Boiling requires fuel. TENG-UV requires neither. One device, maintained correctly, works for years at under $9 per person annually.

The research behind it

The underlying technology is documented in a peer-reviewed paper published in ACS Nano, in collaboration with researchers at Tsinghua University. The paper demonstrates efficacy against E. coli and other waterborne pathogens at disinfection rates exceeding 99.9%.

What a pilot would look like

A small-scale pilot with a resettlement agency would involve deploying devices with 10–20 families over 6 months, collecting water quality and usage data, and producing a field report for wider dissemination. We are actively seeking partner organizations to run this pilot.

TENG-UV vs. Conventional Solutions

Method Annual Cost / Person Grid Required Chemical Byproducts Off-grid Capable
TENG-UV $8.57 No None Yes
Bottled water $200–600+ No Plastic waste Yes
Reverse osmosis filter $100–300 Yes Wastewater No
Chlorination tablets $15–40 No Chlorine residue Yes
Boiling Fuel cost varies No Carbon emissions Yes

Partner with us to run a pilot.

We are looking for resettlement agencies, NGOs, and research institutions interested in field-testing TENG-UV with refugee families in the greater Los Angeles area. The pilot is low-cost, data-generating, and publishable. If your organization works directly with resettled families, we want to hear from you.

Get in touch →

Housing & Displacement

Refugee families in the greater Los Angeles area face a housing market that was not designed for them — high rents, landlord reluctance, and resettlement timelines that don't match market realities. This is what we're documenting and working to change.

—
Families supported through CWS OC housing navigation (updating as work progresses)
$3,000
Typical monthly income ceiling for a newly resettled family of 3 — against LA median rent of $2,200+
90
Days of initial resettlement support from federal funding — often not enough to secure stable housing

When a refugee family is approved for resettlement in the United States, the clock starts immediately. Federal funding covers 90 days of intensive support — help finding housing, enrolling children in school, applying for benefits. After that, families are largely on their own in one of the most expensive rental markets in the country.

What Housing Navigation Actually Looks Like

Through volunteer work with Church World Service Orange County, I've observed the housing navigation process firsthand. Volunteers search Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and direct landlord networks to find units within a family's budget. They contact landlords, explain the refugee resettlement context, assist with applications, and coordinate move-in logistics — including furniture assembly.

The limiting factor is rarely the family's qualifications. It's landlord reluctance, competition from other renters, and the narrow window in which housing must be secured before other resettlement milestones are affected.

What We're Documenting

This section will grow as our housing navigation work develops. We are currently tracking cases, collecting data on search timelines, and building a clearer picture of where the system breaks down — and where targeted interventions could help.

Field notes from housing navigation work are published in the section.

Need housing help?

If you or your family needs resettlement support including housing navigation, contact Church World Service Orange County directly.

CWS Orange County → Call CWS OC →

Volunteer with CWS OC

CWS Orange County has active volunteer teams in housing navigation, tutoring, resource research, and more. Weekly commitment, fieldwork and remote options.

See volunteer roles →

About this work

This documentation is produced by Jerry Zou, a volunteer working with Church World Service Orange County. All family data is anonymized.

About

Jerry Zou

I'm a junior at The Webb Schools in Claremont, California, working at the intersection of investigative journalism and solutions research on displacement, housing, and water access.

The Margins began with a question I couldn't let go of: what happens to a displaced family after the crisis that moves them? The Wangfulaw fire in Hong Kong, the sand cartels of the Mekong Delta, the refugee families in Anaheim searching for a stable apartment — these are connected problems, and they share a common failure: the solutions that exist aren't reaching the people who need them.

My research background is in biosignal processing and environmental sensing. I'm a first author on a published IEEE Sensors Journal paper on EEG-based neural interfaces, and I research at Caltech's CHIC Lab. That technical grounding is what led me to TENG-UV — a water disinfection technology with strong peer-reviewed evidence that remains almost entirely unknown in refugee resettlement circles.

This publication is my attempt to close that gap: rigorous field reporting, honest about limitations, with a clear view toward what can actually be done.

School
The Webb Schools, Claremont CA — Class of 2027
Research
Caltech CHIC Lab; first-author publication, IEEE Sensors Journal
Volunteer
Volunteer working with Church World Service Orange County
Collaboration
TENG-UV research with Prof. Xingwei Wang, Tsinghua University
Recognition
Award-winning essay, Harvard International Review 2025

For research collaboration, partnership inquiries, or press:

jerryzou2021@gmail.com