The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now ( ACORN ) is a collection of community-based organizations in the United States and internationally advocating for low- and middle-income families by working on environmental security, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. At its peak, ACORN has more than 500,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood branches in over 100 cities across the US, as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado.
ACORN conducts voter registration, and works to remove systemic barriers to low-grade voter registration and workers. The Republican Party regularly alleges that it perpetrated voter fraud, but some cases have been found or prosecuted. The organization conducts its own audits and cooperates with employee investigations, referring some cases to law enforcement.
ACORN suffered a nationally destructive controversy from the fall of 2009 after two conservative activists quietly created and released interaction videos staged with low-level ACORN personnel in several offices, portraying personnel as exhilarating criminal behavior. Several independent investigations have finally found that the video has been partially falsified, misled, and selectively edited by activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, and frees ACORN, finding that its employees are not involved in alleged criminal activities and that the organization has done so that should be. managing its federal funding. In the meantime, however, organizations are losing funds directly from government agencies that have contracts, and from private donors.
The loss of funds has been too damaging, and by March 2010, 15 of the 30 chapters of the ACORN country have been closed. ACORN announced it has closed the remaining chapters and the dissolution of the state. On November 2, 2010 its US office filed for the disbursement of capitalization Chapter 7 that effectively closed the organization.
ACORN members and organizers form a new organization in at least three states.
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Organization
ACORN consists of a number of different non-profit entities and affiliates legally including a national umbrella organization established as 501 (c) (4) conducting hatcheries; a local branch was established as a 501 (c) (3) nonpartisan charity; and the national nonprofit and nonstock organization, ACORN Housing Corporation. ACORN's priorities include: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and government, better public schools, labor-oriented causes and social justice issues. ACORN pursues these goals through demonstrations, negotiations, lobbying for legislation, and voter participation.
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Issues and actions
Affordable predators and housing loan
ACORN investigated complaints against companies accused of predatory lending practices. ACORN also works to support strict state laws against predatory practices, which are held against foreclosure saving fraud, and directs the borrower towards credit counseling; After a three-year campaign, Household International (now owned by HSBC Holdings and renamed HSBC Finance Corporation), one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, and ACORN announced on November 25, 2003, a proposed settlement for a 2002 national action the lawsuit filed by ACORN. The settlement created a $ 72 million avoidance program to provide assistance to household borrowers at risk of losing their homes. The settlement came on the heels of a $ 484 million settlement between Household, Attorney General, and bank regulators from all 50 US states.
ACORN and its affiliates are advocating affordable housing by insisting on the development, rehabilitation and establishment of local, state, and federal housing trust funds. The group also encourages the enforcement of affordable housing requirements for developers and promoted programs to help homeowners improve their homes and arrange tenant requests. An official of ACORN voiced support for Hillary Clinton's proposal made during the 2008 presidential election to create a federal fund for depressed homeowners.
Living wage
A decent wage system requires private businesses that do business with the government to pay their workers' wages allowing them to pay for basic needs. ACORN has helped pass local wage laws in 15 cities including Chicago, New Westminster, British Columbia, Oakland, Denver and New York City. ACORN maintains a website that provides strategic and logistical assistance on this issue to organizations across the country.
Hurricane Katrina Help
ACORN members across the country, especially in the Gulf region, organize fundraising and organize drives to ensure that Hurricane Katrina victims receive assistance and will be able to return to the affected areas. The ACORN home demonstration program has destroyed and rebuilt more than 1,850 homes with the help of volunteers. The ACORN Katrina Survivors Association was formed after the storm was the first national organization for Katrina victims and has worked for the just treatment of the victims. Displaced residents are transported to the city for primary and general elections in New Orleans. In October 2007, ACORN said that Housing Services has assisted more than 2,000 storm-affected housing owners. Nonprofits officially work with cities for reconstruction.
Education
ACORN supports educational reform, usually in the form of organizing neighboring groups and "community" or "school ACORN". In Chicago, ACORN has encouraged a certified teacher to be in every class. In California, ACORN has documented the need for textbooks and school improvements. ACORN works with teachers' unions to raise funds for school construction and more funds for schools. ACORN also supports school reform and "creation of alternative public schools" such as charter schools. ACORN opposes the privatization of some NYC schools, supporting the Charter School's own plan. The ACORN model for schools emphasizes small classes, parental involvement, qualified teachers and "community-oriented curriculum".
Voter registration
Since the 1980s, ACORN has made large-scale voter registration withdrawals, with a primary focus on the registration of the poor and minority. During the 2008 election season, ACORN collected more than 1.3 million voter registration forms in 21 states. Some of these registration forms are marked by the ACORN internal auditor for review by election officials. Project Vote estimates that 400,000 registrations collected by ACORN were ultimately rejected, in large part due to duplicate submissions filed by citizens. (This is also a common problem in government voter registration services, according to a report on the National Electoral Registration Act by the US Electoral Aid Commission). The number of unknown enrollments is fraudulent, but Project Vote estimates that only a few percent are, based on previous years and sampled from multiple drives in 2008. No official in the state where voter registration was conducted has documented a large number of fraudulent enrollments. Project Vote estimates that 450,000 of the registrations collected by ACORN represent novice voters, while the rest are address changes submitted by citizens updating their addresses.
As required by law in most states, ACORN must submit all registration forms collected by its employees, including those marked by ACORN as incomplete or suspicious. Fraudulent voter registration is investigated at the local, state, and federal levels, and sometimes results in criminal penalties for ACORN employees. ACORN has fired employees for fraudulent registration practices and submitted them to the authorities. In 2006, ACORN improved its fraud detection and reporting procedures, and worked closely with the authorities in an attempt to prosecute offenders. Jeff Ordower, Midwest Director of ACORN, observed, "There is no scenario where people on the problem cards will show up at the polls." Of 26,513 registrations filed by ACORN during the nine-month period in San Diego County, California, 4,655 were originally marked, but 2,806 of which were subsequently validated. Regional officials say this results in a 7% error rate by ACORN, compared to typically less than 5% for voter drives by other organizations.
In the 2007 case in Washington state, where seven temporary employees of ACORN were accused of hand over false voter registration, ACORN agreed to pay King County $ 25,000 for investigative fees and admitted that national organizations could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again. According to prosecutors, the mistake was made "as an easy way to be paid [by ACORN], not as an attempt to influence election results." In August 2008, ACORN arrested, fired and reported employees of Maria Miles and Kevin Clancy of Milwaukee, who later pleaded guilty to repeatedly registering the names of the same registered voters. In May 2009, six ACORN employees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to a total combined indictment of 51 allegations of counterfeiting and other violations while registering voters during the 2008 election cycle.
In a plea agreement in the case of Las Vegas 2009, former field director of ACORN Amy Busefink and ACORN official Christopher Edwards plead guilty to "conspiracy to commit compensatory crimes for voter registration," in connection with the quota system for paid registration staff. Edwards was sentenced to one year's probation and agreed to testify for the prosecutor demanding ACORN and against Busefink. Busefink appealed his case to the Nevada Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the law. In April 2011, ACORN filed a plea guilty of one allegation of crime compensation for voter registration, in which they were fined $ 5,000, but did not recognize that the law was constitutional.
In addition to voter registration, ACORN has worked to remove systemic barriers to voter registration. In 2006, he brought a lawsuit in federal court in Ohio against Ohio State Minister, at the time Ken Blackwell, and Director of the Ohio Department of Employment and Family Services. ACORN alleges that, during that period including the 2004 US electoral controversy, the defendants committed several violations of the 1993 National Electoral Registration Act. The district court overturned the case, but the decision was canceled in 2008 by the United States. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. After extensive discovery of the facts in 2009, the parties agreed to a settlement, in which the defendants agreed to implement several measures to facilitate the registration of low-income voters to bring the country into compliance with the National Select Right Act. The Dayton Daily News marks the settlement as "accepting complaints [ACORN]."
Pistol control
In 2006, ACORN intervened on behalf of the City of Jersey, New Jersey, in a lawsuit filed against the city against local regulations that limit the purchase of individual weapons to one shotgun per month. The Hudson County High Court broke the rule on the grounds that it violated the New Jersey Constitution's Equal Protection clause, and state legislation prohibiting cities and towns from enacting firearms laws. On September 29, 2008, the New Jersey High Court Appeals Division rejected an ACORN appeal against a Hudson County High Court verdict in violation of Jersey City regulations.
Defenders Program
In 2009, ACORN encouraged homeowners to postpone their mortgage payments to stay in their homes while waiting for government solutions to the housing foreclosure crisis. ACORN introduced a program called Home Defenders Program, which is meant to mobilize people to gather in homes facing foreclosures to "defend the right of families to live in their homes." One web page ACORN advocates civil disobedience against eviction of foreclosures stating that people in foreclosed homes must refuse to leave, and in some cases, reentry.
History
1970-1975
Wade Rathke founded ACORN in 1970, after the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) sent him to Little Rock, Arkansas, as organizer. Rathke has previously left Williams College to promote resistance for Students to Democratic Society. Gary Delgado and George Wiley also played a part in his stance. ACORN's first campaign was to help welfare recipients reach their basic needs, such as clothing and furniture. This encouragement, inspired by the clause in the Arkansas welfare law, begins their efforts to create and sustain the movement to help the welfare and low-income individuals; they developed the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now, the beginning of ACORN.
The purpose of ACORN is to "bring together welfare recipients with people who need jobs around issues such as school lunch, unemployment, Vietnam veterans' rights, and emergency room care."
1975-1980
In 1975, ACORN established branches in Texas and South Dakota. On 13 December 1975, sixty leaders from three countries ACORN selected the first ACORN Executive Association and the first president of ACORN, Steve McDonald, to address issues beyond the scope of city and state councils. Each year after that the ACORN chapters were established in three or more states, building up to a total of 20 countries represented by 1980. This expansion led to a multi-state campaign, beginning with a mass meeting of 1,000 members in Memphis in 1978. At the end of the conference, ACORN convention delegates lined up at the Democratic Party conference with an outline of the nine point "People's Platform." When ratified in 1979, this became the foundation of the ACORN platform.
ACORN is active in the 1980 Elections with "People's Platform" as the standard. It leads a demonstration aimed at both the major party candidates; demanding to meet President Jimmy Carter; marching in the chair of the president's financial committee; and presented his platform to the Republican platform committee. 1983-1989
In 1980, ACORN staff were stretched thin by the demand to meet its expansion goals. Much of his resources and energy have been dedicated to the presidential election and national party conventions. ACORN launched a squatting campaign in an effort to get affordable housing, and encourage squatters to improve their comfortable living quarters.
In June 1982, ACORN sponsored "Reagan Ranches" in Washington, DC and over 35 other cities, in reaction to his belief that the president was focusing on the military as opposed to social spending. These tent cities were set up for two days in the national park; they were opposed by the National Park Service, which tried repeatedly to drive the tents. The protesters remain; they march in the White House and the members testify before the Congressional committee on what they describe as the housing crisis in America. Reagan's last farm was held at the Republican Convention in Dallas in 1984.
In addition to protest, ACORN also develops and strengthens its political action committee and encourages its members to run. For the 1984 election ACORN wants to support a candidate, establishing 75% support in opinion polls among members as a requirement. No candidate reached that level, despite strong support for Jesse Jackson. ACORN also established a legislative office that year in Washington, DC. During this period ACORN also focused on local electoral reforms in a number of cities, including Pittsburgh, Columbia, South Carolina, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They encourage cities to change legislative bodies whose members are widely elected to elect members by single member districts, resulting in more participation by minorities, including women. Large voting tends to benefit candidates who can appeal to the majority and who can order more campaign funds, reducing participation by a wider range of citizens.
At the end of Reagan's first term, ACORN operates in 27 states, adding several chapters in New York City, Washington, DC, and Chicago. During the 1988 Elections, ACORN held a National Convention in the same city as the Democratic Convention - Atlanta.
ACORN membership grew to over 70,000 in 28 countries during this time. It enhances legislative lobbying efforts in Washington, DC, and strengthens the Political Action Committee (PACs). It also developed what is called the Affiliate Media Foundation Movement (AM/FM). Starting with KNON station in Dallas, AM/FM set up radio stations, UHF television and cable television programs. It also sought and received an appointment to the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), which was formed to dissolve the failed Fail and Loans assets resulting from the Savings and Loans crisis.
1988-1998
While some of ACORN's most prominent efforts are in the field of housing, it has calculated the health, public safety, education, representation, employment and worker rights and communication problems among its victories. The 1990 ACORN Convention in Chicago focuses on a rapid housing campaign. It featured a squat demonstration at the RTC house. ACORN members demand that banks provide loan data to low- and middle-income communities and comply with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). ACORN fought against the weakening of CRA in 1991, held a two-day takeover of the House Banking Committee's courtroom. It established ACORN Housing Corporation to help people move into homes under a housing campaign, and to rehabilitate hundreds of homes handled by CRA. The ACORN Convention in New York in 1992, called the "ACORN-Bank Summit", was held to make a deal with the giant banks. When Citibank, the largest bank in the country, did not participate, the convention participants protested in downtown Manhattan, and won a meeting to negotiate for a similar program.
ACORN supports and lobbies for the "Motor Voter Act", which is reserved for voter registration at motor vehicle bureaus. After the trip, the members of ACORN attended the signing ceremony of President Clinton. ACORN is working on new voter registration laws in Arkansas and Massachusetts and filed suit in Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania against certain country practices as a result of such actions.
In 1993, ACORN also embarked on a national campaign to combat insurance curbs, a practice that places profits made in other risky housing campaigns. The campaign is targeting Allstate, hitting sales offices in 14 cities and shareholder meetings. Allstate agreed to negotiate and sign an agreement in 1994 for a $ 10 million partnership with ACORN and NationsBank for under-market mortgages to low-income home buyers. Travelers Insurance approves the Environment and Home Security Program, links access to insurance and lowers rates for public safety programs.
1998-2009
ACORN has worked to support the "Living Wage" program, voter registration, and grassroots political organizations.
In 1998, ACORN helped shape the Workers' Family Party in New York, which raised minimum wages as its main issue.
On March 27, 2003, the decision of the National Labor Relations Board found that ACORN tried to thwart the union organizing efforts within its own organization by sacking two workers who were trying to organize. The two workers, both field operators and ACORN, began discussions with the Employee Service Employees Union and then attempted to take shelter under the World Industrial Workers, seeking to increase their annual salary of $ 20,200 for a 54-hour working week. The NLRB instructs both employees to be reinstated in previous work and that ACORN stops from interrogating employees about organizing activities.
In 2004, Florida ACORN helped to raise Florida's minimum wage of $ 1.00 per hour, by lobbying for minimum wage amendments to be placed on voting. More than 1 million Florida employees are affected by the increase, which is adjusted every year for inflation. That year, ACORN became an international organization, opened offices in Canada, Peru, and began work in the Dominican Republic. Offices were then opened in Mexico and Argentina.
Budget
Until the controversy of 2008 and 2009, ACORN has an annual budget of about US $ 25 million, with about 10% of the funds coming from federal sources, smaller numbers of state resources, and the rest coming from supporters and members. HUD estimates that ACORN received $ 42 million in federal funds since the 2000 fiscal year; House Supervisors and Government Reform Committee estimate that ACORN received $ 53 million since 1994.
Controversy
ACORN is a non-partisan organization, but its separately separate political action groups often support multiple causes and candidates, including Democratic presidential candidate 2008 Barack Obama. ACORN lobbied every Democratic National Convention since 1980 and has members elected as delegates to the convention; ACORN also lobbied at the Republican convention. ACORN was criticized by the Republicans for its support of the Democratic candidate and for the general support of his preferred political position by the Democratic Party.
In a report released in October 2008, US Department of Justice Inspector General concluded that US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sacked US Attorney David Iglesias (one of the nine US lawyers removed in 2006) for political reasons after Iglesias failed to hear ACORN's chapter Mexico.. The report says the claim that Iglesias was dismissed for poor performance is not credible, and "the real reason for the removal of Iglesias is a complaint from politicians and activists of the New Mexico Republican party about how Iglesias deal with voter fraud [case]." Iglesias does not believe there is sufficient evidence to support the prosecution by the government.
During the debate on the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, some commentators stated that the provision of a draft (eliminated in the adopted bill) to grant money to funds administered by the US Treasury has the potential to cause money to flow to groups such as ACORN. When asked how much money ACORN or other community groups would receive, a spokesman for the Financial Services Committee chairman, Barney Frank, said, "Absolutely not, all funds will go to state and local governments." Critics also claim that the organizational structure of the ACORN complex allows it to escape public scrutiny.
2008
ACORN is one of the groups that registered voters before the 2008 presidential election; Republicans accuse them of being responsible for voter registration scams and having a conflict of interest. During the 2008 Presidential Primary President, ACORN's national political action committee, ACORN Votes, supported Barack Obama. Obama, with several other lawyers, has served as a local adviser to ACORN more than a decade earlier in the 1995 voting suit followed by the Justice and Voters League of Women. The Obama campaign employs an ACORN affiliate for $ 800,000 to make an out-vote effort during the primary, but does not retain ACORN for the general presidential election.
Throughout the election season, Republican candidate supporters allege that ACORN is responsible for widespread fraud. In October 2008, a campaign for Republican presidential candidate John McCain released a Web-based advertisement claiming ACORN was responsible for "massive voter fraud," a point repeated by Senator McCain in a presidential debate. FactCheck.org calls this claim "mediocre inaccurate," but acknowledges that ACORN has a problem with fake registration. The ad also claims that the home loan program promoted by ACORN is partly responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis. Newsweek and Factcheck.org also found these claims exaggerated and inaccurate.
A poll released in November 2009 by the Public Policy Polling organization found that 52% of Republican members surveyed, and 26% of respondents overall, believe in conspiracy theorists that ACORN "stole" elections for Barack Obama. The Democratic polling organization commented that this was somewhat higher than the belief in birther conspiracy theory. (In the ensuing poll in 2012, the PPP found that 49% of Republicans, almost the same percentage as in 2009, believed that ACORN had stolen the 2012 election for Obama, but ACORN was no longer in operation.)
2008-2009
The New York Times reported on July 9, 2008 that Dale Rathke, founder of ACORN's brother, Wade Rathke, was found to have embezzled $ 948,607.50 from affiliated groups and charities in 1999 and 2000. Executives ACORN decides to handle it as an internal matter, and does not notify most lawmakers or council members, and instead signs a refund agreement that can be upheld with the Rathke family to pay back the amount of embezzlement. $ 210,000 has been paid off, and a donor, Drummond Pike, has offered to pay the remaining debt. The Times reported that, according to Wade Rathke, "the decision to keep it secret is not done to protect his brother but because the word embezzlement would put 'weapon' into the hands of the enemy of ACORN, a liberal group that is often the conservative target who object to often an exhausting advocacy on behalf of families and low- and middle-income workers. "A disclosure of facts revealed the embezzlement in 2008. On June 2, 2008, Dale Rathke was dismissed, and Wade resigned as chairman of the ACORN gang, but he remained the chairman for Acorn International LLC
In September 2008, following the disclosure of Dale Rathke's fraud, two members of the ACORN national board of directors filed suit to obtain financial documents and forced the organization to break ties with Wade Rathke. The executive committee of ACORN voted unanimously to remove both, "because of their actions - such as releasing secret memos to the press - damaging the organization."
In October 2009, Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell claimed in a statement that the ACORN board of directors found that a larger sum - $ 5 million - had been embezzled from the organization. Bertha Lewis, CEO of ACORN, said the allegations were wrong. On November 6, following up on a subpoena, Caldwell served a search warrant at ACORN headquarters in New Orleans. Caldwell stated, "This is an investigation of everything - Acorn, a national organization, a local organization, and all its affiliated entities."
2009
In September 2009, conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe published hidden recording cameras that were selectively edited via Fox News and Andrew Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com. In the video, Giles acts as a prostitute and O'Keefe plays her boyfriend for a damaging response from an ACORN employee. The video was recorded during the summer of 2009 while visiting the ACORN office in eight cities, and is intended to show low-level ACORN employees in several cities advising Giles and O'Keefe on how to avoid taxes and detection by authorities regarding their plans to engage in tax evasion, people smuggling, and child prostitution. After the video is published, the U.S. Congress choose to remove federal funding to ACORN. Although the resolution was subsequently annulled in a federal court ruling whose size was an unconstitutional bill unconstitutional, on August 13, 2010, a federal appeals court upheld congressional action that cut federal funding for ACORN. In March 2010, ACORN announced it would close its offices and disband due to loss of funds from the government and private donors.
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts General Prosecutor, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the video that had been released appears to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal behavior by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by some low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the district attorney's office for Brooklyn decided that the videos were "heavily edited" and "many of the answers that seemed to encourage crime were taken out of context to appear more sinister," and concluded that no crime was committed by ACORN staff in video from office Brooklyn ACORN. On April 1, 2010, an investigation by California's Attorney General found videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "highly edited," and investigations found no evidence of criminal behavior on the part of employees of ACORN. On June 14, 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings indicating that ACORN did not indicate that it, or its associated organizations, had wrongly handled federal money they had received.
Defund ACORN Act
At the end of 2009, after numerous alleged criminal activities due to video, some Democrats who had advertised their connection to ACORN began to distance themselves, as Republicans began to accuse ACORN of portraying Democrats as corrupt. In a direct response to the 2009 video controversy, the United States House and Senate, by a large margin, attached amendments to a pending spending law that would temporarily prohibit the federal government from funding ACORN, or agents that had been implicated in similar scandals - including money authorized by previous law. President Obama signed the bill into law on October 1.
ACORN sued the United States Government in the United States District Court in Brooklyn for the act, known as the "ACORN Defund Act", claiming that it was a bill of attainment, and therefore unconstitutional. Experts vary on the merits of cases, which are laid out ACORN v. United States . One argument is that while the choice of government funding generally does not qualify as a bill of attainment, the lack of non-penal rule objectives for legislation can give the courts "sufficient ground to overcome constitutionality." The court issued a preliminary injunction ordering to cancel the act.
Responding to a request from a lawyer for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, David Barron, assistant public prosecutor for the Office of the Legal Counsel, wrote a five-page memorandum concluding that the law does not prohibit the government from paying for ACORN for services already in place. On December 11, US District Judge Nina Gershon issued an initial court order blocking the government from imposing a temporary spending ban, a week before it was set to expire. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) opened an ACORN investigation in December 2009. In June 2010, GAO released preliminary reports stating that the investigation found no sign of a group or organization related to faulty handling the $ 40 million in federal money they received from nine federal agencies.
On August 13, 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Judge Gerson's decision. The appeals court cited the study's findings that only 10% of ACORN's funding came from federal sources, and stated, "We doubt that the direct consequence of a temporary designation that precludes ACORN from federal funds is highly disproportionate or highly inappropriate for punishment." The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has debated the case on behalf of ACORN, is considering a request for rehearing by more judges from the 2nd Circuit.
2010
On March 19, 2010, The New York Times reported that ACORN was on the verge of bankruptcy filing; 15 of the state's 30 branches have been disbanded over the previous six months, and other chapters (including the largest, in New York and California) have renamed themselves and severed all ties with national organizations. Two unnamed ACORN officials told the Times that the following weekend, teleconferencing was planned to discuss bankruptcy filings; "private donations from the foundation to Acorn [all] but yawn," and the federal government has distanced itself from the group. "[L] before the activist video conveys what might be the last blow, the organization has for years been hit by financial problems and fraud allegations." "The 20 minute video spoiled 40 years of good work," said Sonja Merchant-Jones, former chairman of the co-chair of ACORN who recently ended Maryland's chapter. "But if the organization faces its own internal problems, it probably will not be taken away easily."
On March 22, 2010, National ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said the organization's board decided to close the remaining affiliate offices and field offices on April 1 due to a decrease in revenues. Other national operations continue to operate for several weeks before being closed for good. On April 20, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis reported that ACORN "is still alive, we are hobbled, we support life." Lewis said that ACORN's annual budget had been reduced from $ 25 million to $ 4 million, and that its staff of 350 to 600 people had been reduced to four. Lewis explained that the controversy left a stain on ACORN, "like a red letter," forcing the group to spend money in self-defense "one after another."
ACORN affiliated group
Several chapters continue operations by severing ties with national organizations:
- ACORN California staff members and staff set up a new organization, The Californians for Community Empowerment Alliance.
- New York ACORN founded the New York Community for Change.
- A Milwaukee branch of ACORN called Acorn Housing changed its name to American Affordable Housing Center but has retained the same tax number and employee identification number it holds under the name.
References
Bibliography
- Delgado, Gary (1986). Organize Movement: Roots and Growth ACORN . Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBNÃ, 0-87722-393-9. OCLCÃ, 12134922. Ã,
- Swarts, Heidi J. (2008). Organizing Urban America: The Secular and Progressive Movement . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN: 978-0-8166-4839-9.
- Atlas, John (2010). Seed Changes: Acts of ACORN, The Most Controversial Anti-Poverty Community Organizing Group . Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN: 978-0-8265-1705-0.
External links
- ACORN website container
- ACORN and the Firestorm 2018 Documentary
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- The ACORN website as it appeared in 2009
- ORGANIZER a documentary about Wade Rathke, the controversial founder of ACORN
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