ACORN in Hot Water...Again

11/11/10

Specifically, this latest round of bad decision making by the group has to do with a contract that would have awarded them the tasks of removing lead poisoning in low income housing across the country. Congress has long since cut ACORN's federal monies when investigations revealed alleged voter registration, embezzlement and fraud charges. These latest accusations, however, occurred before March of this year, and in fact, date back to 2004.

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The federal grants awarded to ACORN were placed with an organization that would administer the monies as the agency needed them. Unfortunately, it was ACORN that established the agency. Among other things, investigators want to know why:

• ACORN did not document open competition around the country, leaving close to $2 million unaccounted for.
• There is no paper trail. The government's Housing and Urban Development agency (HUD) has been advised by the attorney and inspector generals to demand documentation of which contractors were chosen and any appropriate justification as to why there was no competitive bid process.
• $1.2 million was spent on worker's compensation, political campaigns, fundraising, and payroll taxes. It is illegal, if proven the funds were spent this way, under general accounting practices.
  

Clearly, ACORNs troubles are far from over, as its lawyers are saying some information that would have proven no misappropriations at all were lost during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

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In September, 2009, two activists, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, traveled around the country and secretly videotaped various ACORN offices. What they discovered was a rich source, courtesy of the employees, on how to do everything from avoid paying taxes, safely smuggle humans, how to prostitute children and one employee even suggested to Giles that they have dinner. In 2010, Brooklyn's District Attorney determined the videos were edited, and in fact, were ''heavily'' edited. O'Keefe and Giles said in no way were the twelve tapes edited; they gave the raw footage to the news media ''as is''.

Still, the video controversy resulted in private donors withdrawing their support as well as the government announcing it would no longer fund ACORN.