Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the largest community organization of low and moderate-income families in the United States. ACORN has an active membership of over 175,000 families, organized into more than 1200 neighborhood chapters in more than 85 cities across the United States, as well as in Canada and Peru. As a community group, ACORN is non-profit, non-violent, and politically non-partisan though certainly progressive. The organization was born out of the American Civil Rights Movement. ACORN was founded by Wade Rathke, a community and labor organizer, in 1970. The current president of ACORN is Maude Hurd. The group has been criticized for alleged electioneering tactics and its support of various left-wing causes and subtle support of partisan candidates.

ACORN groups win reform through direct actions, negotiations, and working with public officials.

Issues and actions

Predatory lending

ACORN has fought lending practices that it sees as predatory by targeting the national companies that practice them, working for stronger state laws against predatory practices, organizing against local financial scams, and steering individuals toward loan counseling.

Following a three-year campaign to reform the lending practices of Household International, one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, on November 25, 2003, ACORN and Household (now owned by HSBC Holdings and renamed HSBC Finance Corporation) announced a proposed settlement of a national class-action lawsuit that ACORN brought against the company in 2002. The centerpiece of the settlement is a $72 million Foreclosure Avoidance Program which will provide relief to Household borrowers who are behind on their payments and at risk of losing their homes. This settlement came on the heels of an earlier $484 million settlement between Household, attorney generals, and bank regulators from all 50 US states.

In early 2003, ACORN began efforts to seek similar reforms from Wells Fargo. At ACORN's national convention in 2004, three thousand ACORN members presented Wells Fargo with a lawsuit.

Living wages

Living wage ordinances require private businesses, usually only those that do business with the government, to pay their workers a wage that enables them to afford basic necessities. ACORN is a leader in the national living wage movement and has passed local living wage laws in fifteen cities including Chicago, Oakland, Denver, and New York City. ACORN maintains the Living Wage Resource Center, which provides strategy and logistical assistance to organization nationwide.

Education

ACORN pushes education reform usually in the form of organizing neighborhood groups and "community" or "ACORN schools". It also frequently combats charter school and for-profit schooling initiatives (most notably the proposed Edison Schools takeover of the New York City public schools in 2001).

Affordable housing

By organizing tenant unions, pushing for inclusionary zoning, and ensuring fair and increased access to low-interest home loans, ACORN has sought to extend the possibility of homeownership to all people.

In the 1980s, ACORN members fought banks that were refusing to give home loans to people living in low income and minority neighborhoods. The practice is called redlining, and is now illegal as a result of campaigns by ACORN and other organizations.

Additionally, ACORN created a loan counseling program called ACORN Housing. ACORN Housing is distinct organization from ACORN, though the two work closely together to increase home ownership.

Environmentalism

Along with establishing laws requiring and laws promoting the prevention of childhood lead poisoning, ACORN has won clean-up of work sites and housing units contaminated by lead, asbestos, and mold. Around the country, thousands of ACORN members participate in ACORN National Clean Up Day, clearing abandoned lots, restoring neighborhood parks, and turning illegal dumping areas into community space. Once these sites are cleaned and reclaimed, the local government or owner of the site commits to ensuring that the area is properly maintained.

Additionally, ACORN has won emissions monitoring from factories near neighborhoods and schools, and closures of industrial plants that caused public health problems.

Immigrant rights

ACORN has fought for the rights of undocumented immigrants. ACORN has promoted amnesty for such workers, most notably at a rally in Chicago in 2000 and as a major sponsor of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Coalition.

Voter registration

ACORN has engaged in large-scale voter registration projects in several states, most notably Florida, where the proportion of minorities voting has been less than their proportion of the population. In 2004, ACORN registered over one million voters throughout the United States.

Katrina Victims

ACORN members across the country, particularly those in the Gulf region, have organized fundraising and organizing drives to ensure that victims of Hurricane Katrina will receive assistance and the right of return to affected areas. ACORN has held town hall style meetings for those displaced to air concerns and present solutions to the crisis.

History

1970-1975: Founding and early growth

ACORN was founded by Wade Rathke when he was sent to Little Rock, Arkansas by the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in 1970 as an organizer. Gary Delgado and George A. Wiley were also instrumental to ACORN's founding. The first campaign was aimed at helping welfare recipients attain their basic needs, such as clothing and furniture. This drive, inspired by a clause in the Arkansas welfare laws, began the effort to create and sustain a movement that would grow to become the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now – the original ACORN.

ACORN's goal was to unite welfare recipients with needy working people around issues of free school lunches, unemployment issues, Vietnam veterans' rights, and emergency room care. The broad range of issues did not stop there as the organization grew throughout Arkansas. ACORN organized farmers to take on environmental issues concerning sulfur emmssions.

Meanwhile, in 1972 back in Little Rock, ACORN was holding neighborhood rallies on a variety of issues, endorsing candidates for local office and eventually had members running for office themselves in 1974.

1975-1980: Growth of the movement

In 1975, ACORN became a multi-state organization with new branches in Texas and South Dakota. On December 13, sixty leaders from the three ACORN states elected the first associate Executive Board and the first ACORN president, Steve McDonald, to deal with matters beyond the scope of the individual city and state boards. Each year thereafter saw three or more states join ACORN with a total of twenty states in 1980.

The great expansion of the organization led to multi-state campaigns beginning with a mass meeting of 1,000 members in Memphis in 1978. At the end of the conference, ACORN convention delegates marched on the Democratic Party conference with the outline of a nine-point “People’s Platform" which would go on to become the foundation of the organization's platform when it was ratified in 1979.

ACORN was heavily involved in the 1980 Election with the "People's Platform" serving as its standard bearer. Demonstrations aimed at both major party candidates including demands to meet with President Jimmy Carter, marching on the president's campaign finance committee chair's home, and presenting the platform to the GOP platform committee.

1980-1988: Reagan Era

ACORN’S staff was stretched thin by the demands of meeting the goal of expanding to twenty states by 1980. Much of its resources and energy had been dedicated to participating in the presidential primaries and national conventions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. ACORN launched a campaign to obtain affordable housing which resulted in squatting campaigns. ACORN took the concept a step further though by encouraging people to move into a vacant, usually poorly kept house and to refit it for comfortable living. It also involved the risk of arrest for breaking and entering and trespassing.

In June of 1982 ACORN sponsored "Reagan Ranches" in over 35 cities believing the president's focus to be on military as opposed to social spending. "Reagan Ranches" were tent cities erected nationally for two days and met with serious resistance from the National Park Service who tried repeatedly to evict ACORN tenters. The protesters remained and then marched on the White House and testified before a Congressional committee about what they described as the housing crisis in America. The Republican Convention in Dallas, Texas in 1984 was the culminating "Reagan Ranch".

In addition to protesting ACORN also developed and strengthened its political action committees and encouraged its members to run for office. For the 1984 Election ACORN wanted to endorse a candidate, setting a 75% support in polls among members as its requirement. No candidate reached that level, though there was strong support for Jesse Jackson. A legislative office was also established in Washington, DC.

During this period ACORN also focused on local election reform in a number of cities, including Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Columbia, South Carolina, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota encouraging the change of at-large legislative bodies to district representation.

ACORN grew to twenty-seven states, adding chapters in New York City, Washington, DC, and Chicago, Illinois by the end of Reagan's first term.

During the 1988 Election ACORN held its National Convention in the same city as the Democratic Convention -- Atlanta, Georgia. During the preceding four years ACORN had strengthened its ties with Jesse Jackson and accounted for thirty Jackson delegates. They also sponsored a march at the convention.

ACORN's membership grew to 70,000 plus in twenty-eight states during this time. The organization increased its legislative lobbying efforts in Washington and strengthened its PACs. It also developed what it called the Affiliated Media Foundation Movement (AM/FM). Starting with station KNON in Dallas, AM/FM moved on to establish radio stations, UHF television and cable television programming. It also sought and received appointments to the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) which was formed to dissolve the assets of failed Savings and Loans resulting from the Savings and Loan crisis.

1988-1998: Focus on housing

While some of ACORN’s most notable efforts were in the area of housing, it has counted health, public safety, education, representation, work and workers’ rights and communications concerns among its victories.

The 1990 ACORN convention in Chicago focused on the fast-breaking housing campaign. It featured a squatting demonstration at an RTC house which was reclaimed for use in an ACORN neighborhood. Later, ACORN members demanded cooperation from banks about providing loan data on low- and moderate-income communities and compliance with 1977's Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).

ACORN fought weakening of the CRA in 1991, when ACORN staged a two-day takeover of the House Banking Committee hearing room to be sure their voices were heard by Congress. It also established ACORN Housing Corporation to service people moving into homes under the housing campaign, rehabilitated hundreds of houses addressed by CRA.

The ACORN convention in New York in 1992, the “ACORN-Bank Summit,” was organized to hammer out deals with giant banks. When Citibank, the nation’s largest bank, did not participate conventioneers protested at Citibank’s downtown Manhattan headquarters, and won a meeting to negotiate for similar programs.

ACORN supported and lobbied for the “Motor Voter” Act. After its passage, ACORN members attended President Clinton’s signing ceremony. ACORN then pursued new registration laws in Arkansas and Massachusetts and filed suit in Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania as a result of the act.

In 1993, ACORN also began a national campaign to fight insurance redlining, a practice that put the gains made in other housing campaigns at risk. The campaign targeted Allstate, hitting sales offices in fourteen cities and a stockholders meeting. Allstate agreed to negotiate and signed an agreement in 1994 for a $10 million partnership with ACORN and NationsBank for below-market mortgages to low-income homebuyers. Travelers Insurance came on board with a Neighborhood and Home Safety Program, linking access to insurance and lower rates to public safety programs.

1998-2004: Building progressive capacity

ACORN's recent activities have included its "Living Wage" programs, voter registration, and grassroots political organization. In 1998 ACORN helped form the Working Families Party in New York which counts increasing the minimum wage as its centerpiece issue. ACORN has also strengthened its ties with the Service Employees International Union often working collaboratively on issues (including health insurance costs and the minimum wage) and even sharing office space.

In 2004, Florida ACORN raised Florida's minimum wage by $1.00 an hour to $6.15 by putting a minimum wage amendment on the ballot. Over 1 million Florida employees will be affected by the raise.

The organization continues its multi-issue focus however, pursuing a wide range of issues while building grassroots strength and progressive capacity.

In 2003, ACORN opened operations in 20 new cities, including 5 state capitals.

2004 saw ACORN become an international organization, opening offices in Canada, Peru, and beginning work in Dominican Republic.

Criticisms

Employee relations

A March 27, 2003 decision of the National Labor Relations Board found (in 338 NRLB No. 129) ACORN attempted to thwart union organizing efforts within its own organization by laying off workers who were attempting to organize. The two workers, both field organizers with ACORN, began discussions with the Service Employees International Union and later sought to organize under Industrial Workers of the World in response to their $16,000 annual salary for a 54-hour work week. The NLRB ordered the employees be reinstated in their former jobs and ACORN cease from interrogating employees about organizing activity.

Additionally, ACORN filed a lawsuit in California seeking to exempt itself from the state's minimum wage of $4.25 per hour in 1996, the same year it won a victory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to raise the minimum wage for custodial workers to $6.25 per hour.

Voter registration misconduct

On September 7, 2004 a Columbus, Ohio grand jury indicted ACORN employee and felony Parolee Kevin Eugene Dooley for election fraud. The indictment charges Dooley forged a signature to a voter registration form.

In August 2004 a lawsuit was filed in Albuquerque, New Mexico alleging that the policies of the New Mexico Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, improperly exempted individuals who registered to vote through canvassers from requirements that some new registrants submit ID at polling places. During testimony in the case ACORN director Matt Henderson invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions as to whether ACORN had copied voter registration cards before turning them in while being questioned about fraudulent registrations allegedly turned in by ACORN.

ACORN has previously denied any wrongdoing and fired one worker involved in New Mexico registrations. An investigation into the allegedly fraudulent registrations by the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico was launched, and was dropped after no impropriety was found. In January 2005 two ex-ACORN workers were convicted in Denver, Colorado of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.

Further, investigations responding to fraud allegations recently ended in Colorado, Wisconsin, Florida, and Ohio after finding no evidence of pervasive voter fraud. In Wisconsin, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic, a Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded, “We don’t see a massive conspiracy to alter the election in Milwaukee, one way or another.” In Ohio, a federal investigation ended with no indictments. “Our investigation is closed. No one was charged,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Edwards.

ACORN uses a comprehensive quality control program developed by Project Vote. Separate quality control staff visually review all collected registration applications and then call applicants to verify submitted information. ACORN maintains a zero-tolerance policy against fraud and, by implementing these procedures, is able to identify and terminate any employee submitting fraudulent registrations.

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