ACORN Targets Predatory Lending at National Convention
First National Gathering of Grassroots Activists and Lending Victims
Over 2000 ACORN members from across the country will take action against predatory lending at as the issue takes center stage at ACORN's 30th Anniversary National Convention in Philadelphia June 24-26. ACORN's convention will be the first national gathering of grassroots activists and community leaders to address the issue.
- The convention kick-off event will be protest against a predatory lending target on Sunday, June 25.
- Convention participants will later hit the streets of North Philadelphia to make neighborhoods off-limits to predatory lenders or "Shark Free."
- A march through Center City and further protests against predatory lending will take place on Monday, June 27.
"We have fought for years to increase reinvestment in our communities only to be victimized by predatory lenders. ACORN will fight to take back our communities from these loan sharks street by street if we have to," according to Maude Hurd, ACORN National President. "Although we are celebrating our victories and our endurance after 30 years, we are coming to Philadelphia this June Fighting for Our Future."
Over the past year, ACORN has engaged in direct action against both large and small predatory lenders, using a wide range of tactics to expose their abuses, pressure them to change their practices, and to generate support for ACORN's efforts to win regulatory intervention and needed legislation with increased consumer protections. ACORN has targeted some lenders nationally because of their outrageous practices and the large volume of complaints we have received from their customers. ACORN's campaign has resulted in HUD investigations, the introduction of state legislation, local ordinances, and national legislation.
Over 30 years, ACORN has become the nation's largest organization of low and moderate-income in the country. ACORN will celebrate its 30th Anniversary with a host of national civil rights and labor leaders including: Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO; New York civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton ; Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.; and Dennis Rivera, President of Local 1199/SEIU, and other community and labor leaders.
From an organization founded by welfare mothers in Little Rock, Arkansas, ACORN celebrates its growth, longevity and success as it has grown to an organization with over 150,000 African-American, white and Latino family members in 34 cities. Organizational accomplishments include:
- Leading campaigns all across the country to pass living wage ordinances which require companies that receive public assistance to pay their employees a living wage. ACORN has passed seven such ordinances, and has assisted other communities in passing over 40 living wage ordinances all across the county.
- Landmark community reinvestment agreements with national lenders assisting over 25,000 families become homeowners.
- The establishment of alternative public schools in lower income areas of Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City, Chicago and St. Paul. Improved school facilities and governance in Chicago, New York, San Jose, Little Rock and Bridgeport.
- Increased voter registration in lower-income communities by striking down barriers to voter registration in Atlanta, Little Rock, Bridgeport and Pine Bluff, Ark. and the registration of over 500,000 new voters since 1980.
ACORN is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots community organization, with offices in 34 cities. Our multi-racial membership of low and moderate income families work in neighborhood chapters to improve local conditions as well as work on larger citywide, statewide, and national issues such as affordable housing, quality education, living wage jobs and increased homeownership.
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More net archives:
But in Little Rock, Hillary Clinton joined the male-dominated Rose Law Firm. The decision, she wrote in her memoir, was partly economic, an effort to secure the family's finances while Bill Clinton pursued a career in politics.
Although she continued to do free legal work for some groups, her new career occasionally put her at odds with constituencies with whom she'd traditionally been aligned. In the late 1970s, a community group won a major victory with the passage of a Little Rock ballot measure regarding utility rates. The proposal aimed to make the rates more affordable by creating a fixed price for the first 400 kilowatt hours of consumption, so low-income customers could have power for their basic needs, said Wade Rathke, the founder of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the group behind the measure. The measure would have forced large utility users, such as businesses, to pay more.
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Looks like Hillary did free legal work for ACORN, which birthed in Little Rock.
