ACORN looks to transplant here By GINGER ADAMS OTIS Last Updated: 5:25 AM, September 20, 2009 Posted: 2:18 AM, September 20, 2009
Brooklynite Bertha Lewis is trying to make New York into ACORN's power base.
Lewis, CEO of the controversial community-outreach group, is looking to move central operations from New Orleans to the Empire State, former ACORN members say.
"They want to relocate to New York, where Bertha can consolidate her power," said Marcel Reid, an ACORN whistleblower who has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the group's mysterious finances.
Is it a surprise to anyone that ACORN wants to move it's central office to NYS? I think it's the welfare capital of the country. Now if NYS was smart....they would forbid them to come here until a completed investigation is done.
But what the heck....lets just add to the welfare/corruption stats!
'Nut'-house empire ACORN grabs up $50M in city homes By BRENDAN SCOTT Post Correspondent Last Updated: 6:23 AM, September 21, 2009 Posted: 5:23 AM, September 21, 2009
ACORN has quietly become one of the Big Apple's biggest owners of low- and moderate-income housing, amassing a real-estate empire worth at least $50 million, The Post has learned.
New York ACORN and a tangled web of affiliates own or manage nearly 1,500 housing units across three boroughs and draw in an estimated $5.7 million in rents, fees and profits from sales.
The properties are controlled by an opaque collection of nonprofits, holding companies and development funds. Many have generic names, like the 385 Palmetto Street Housing Development Fund or the Mutual Housing Association of New York, leaving no clue of their ties to the national ACORN conglomerate.
Founded in 1987, MHANY now owns more than 80 homes and apartment houses across Brooklyn and brought in some $2.5 million in revenue in 2007, according to a Post review of state and federal filings.
Such income helps support at least 18 local ACORN affiliates largely based at the 2-4 Nevins St., Brooklyn, address ACORN shares with the left-of-center Working Families Party.
Among them is New York ACORN Housing Company, which was thrust into a political firestorm last week after two of its employees were caught in a national hidden-camera sting giving shady financial advice to two conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.
There's more corruption coming out about horrid ACORN. Allegations of at least $1 MILLION embezzled and the fact that the group is broke. Welcome to NYS-now go home.
SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 Bank Pulls Back From Acorn Work By JAMES R. HAGERTY
Already facing the loss of federal government funding, the community-organizing group Acorn also has run afoul of one of its big corporate partners, Bank of America Corp.
In response to questions from The Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for the banking company said it has "suspended current commitments" to Acorn Housing, an affiliated group, and "will not enter into any further agreements with Acorn or any of its affiliates," pending assessments by the bank of the organization's operations.
Acorn, officially the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has been under fire since the recent release of secretly recorded videos that showed Acorn employees offering advice on evading taxes, setting up brothels and smuggling illegal immigrants.
Acorn has called the actions unacceptable and has fired the workers involved. Last week, Acorn said it has selected Scott Harshbarger, a former Massachusetts attorney general, to investigate any wrongdoing at the organization.
Acorn Housing for years has worked with Bank of America and some other big banks on foreclosure-prevention efforts.
"Bank of America takes recent allegations made against Acorn and Acorn Housing Corporation employees very seriously," the bank said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Census Bureau dropped Acorn as a partner for the 2010 Census, and the House of Representatives voted to block the group from receiving federal funds.
"We're not surprised that our lending partners like Bank of America want assurances that this won't happen again," said Michael Shea, executive director of Acorn Housing, which is based in Chicago and has about 250 employees nationwide........................................>>>>..................>>>>...............http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125409478511144963.html#mod=article-outset-box
I wouldn't trust anyone that Acorn appoints to investigate their wrong doing especially a former attorney general from one of the most liberal states in the USA.
Patrick Gaspard, considered one of the most powerful figures in the Obama White House, is a "longtime ACORN operative" and former union official, according to a report posted Monday on the American Spectator's online blog.
Gaspard's name recently surfaced as the official President Obama dispatched to urge beleaguered New York Gov. David Paterson not to run for another term. Paterson insists he'll continue to run for governor even without Obama's support.
Gaspard has extensive ties to organized labor and community-organizing groups. One measure of his influence in the White House: He holds the same "political affairs director" title that belonged to Karl Rove during the Bush administration.
The Spectator's Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at the Capital Research Center think tank, reported that Gaspard was the New York political director for top ACORN official Bertha Lewis before 2003. Lewis is the CEO and "chief organizer" for ACORN, which is the subject of more than a dozen investigations for vote-registration fraud nationwide.
The House and Senate recently moved to cut off ACORN funding after a series of videos revealed the willingness of its staff to help establish a reputed child-prostitution ring based in San Salvador. Obama refused to support ending federal funding for ACORN, however, telling ABC: "It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to."
Vadum cited the blog maintained by ACORN founder Wade Rathke, ChiefOrganizer.org, as his source for the Gaspard-ACORN link.
In May, Rathke described how officials of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) teamed up with HealthCare Reform Czar Nancy-Ann DeParle to pry big price concessions from private health firms.
Speaking of the advantage that comes from having powerful friends in high places, Rathke wrote: "Tell me that (Local) 1199’s former political director, Patrick Gaspard (who was ACORN New York’s political director before that) didn’t reach out from the White House and help make that happen, and I’ll tell you to take some remedial classes in 'politics 101.'"
The Spectator described Gaspard "ACORN's Man in the White House." It also reported that he was national field director in 2004 for American Coming Together (ACT), a get-out-the-vote organization.
The FEC hit ACT with a $775,000 fine for campaign-finance violations — one of the largest FEC fines ever — and it reportedly ceased operations in 2005.
Gaspard also worked for eight years for SEIU Local 1199, a hospital workers local, according to the Village Voice.
The Spectator report detailed what it calls the "fuzzy" line between the SEIU and ACORN.
Vadum reported that SEIU Local 880 and the SEIU Local 100 that Rathke heads are "part of the ACORN network of organizations."
He reported that the locals were listed as such on ACORN's Web site, buts the references recently were removed.
Logged
Another story on the collapse of the once Empire State.
