Posted on 07/06/2011 6:48:07 PM PDT by markomalley
In spite of a law aimed at de-funding the controversial organization, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is still receiving taxpayer money through an offshoot group.
Legal watchdog group Judicial Watch discovered that the Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a $79,819 grant to an ACORN offshoot, Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA).
Though HUD intended the grant to be for AHCOA to “educate the public and housing providers about their rights and obligations under federal, state, and local fair housing laws,” the government website listing federal expenditures labels the recipient of the grant “ACORN HOUSING CORPORATION, INC.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told The Daily Caller this newly discovered grant appears to be in violation of an October 2009 law President Obama signed banning all funding of “ACORN and any ACORN-related affiliate.”
Fitton said the grant also appears to debunk what Judicial Watch calls a “controversial advisory opinion” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued in September 2010, stating it considers AHCOA an entity sufficiently removed from ACORN that the funding ban shouldn’t apply to it.
“If President Obama is serious about the ACORN funding ban he signed in 2009, he’ll try to get to the bottom of this,” Fitton said, adding that Congress can withhold HUD’s funding and conduct oversight investigations into these new discoveries. “I think many members of Congress will be interested in this new development.”
Fitton told TheDC he expects that more grants like this one to turn up. “ACORN basically reorganized under a different name,” he said in a phone interview. “I don’t think this happened by accident. They’re all the same people still involved just working for organizations with different names.”
Fitton said he thinks it’s likely that HUD employees, whether political appointees from the Obama administration or career staffers, knew they were giving money to ACORN-affiliated organizations.
Obama administration HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan has a documented past with ACORN. In 2009, The New York Times reported that Donovan worked “particularly closely” with ACORN while working for New York City Kayor Michael Bloomberg. The Times story also documents Donovan’s ties with ACORN’s chief executive, Bertha Lewis.
Citing the GAO report Judicial Watch casts doubt on, HUD spokesman Jereon Brown told TheDC he thinks HUD is “in complete compliance with the law.”
“Both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and HUD’s Office of General Counsel have determined that Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) is not a subsidiary, affiliate, or allied organization of ACORN,” Brown said.
As for the specific grant, Brown said the government database keeping track of expenditures with organizations’ tax identification numbers associated AHCOA’s number with its previous name: ACORN HOUSING CORPORATION, INC. HUD contends that isn’t enough to qualify AHCOA as ACORN-affiliated.
“In April, HUD awarded a $79,819 grant to AHCOA to provide fair housing and fair lending information and assistance to at least 35,000 minority, non-English speaking and immigrant households in the Miami-Dade metropolitan area,” Brown said. “After the award of the grant, AHCOA submitted its tax identification number which was entered into a government database, which still associated the number with the organization’s previous name.”
bump
As long as the Kenyan is sitting in the White House, ACORN and his union thugs are going to continue cleaning up. They may be commies and Marxists but they love the almighty buck just as much as any capitalist. Probably even more.
Where has that coward Bonehead been????
Is there nothing we can cut in the budget???????????????????????
10-to-1 that ACORN’s biggest current initiative involves setting off flash mobs in various cities around the country.
Military pay and benefits. Other than that, no.
Mr. niteowl77
They cleaned up during the last administration too. As long as their are democrats who can buy liberal votes with taxpayer money we will have an ACORN. They may change the name a few times but it was and will always be an activists arm of the progressive movement.
We would do well to simply ban the receipt of taxpayer funds to any organization not specifically provided for by the constitution. If that is not realistic we should at least ban the receipt of taxpayer funds to any group that lobbies or campaigns for either party. I know, not a snowballs chance in hell.
Many had predicted this exact scenario shortly after the original prohibition had been made. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, so to speak.
Hey all you have to do is change your name and every idiot on both sides of the isle will send you money. Hell what do they care. It’s not coming out of their pockets.
Obama and the Dems are getting ready for ACORN to engage in voter fraud again like in the past two elections. Obama thinks laws applies to everyone but him. He talks out of both sides of his mouth and wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the butt.
WHY DO WE HAVE TO RELY ON PRIVATE GROUPS LIKE JUDICIAL WATCH TO BE DOING WHAT OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES WERE ELECTED TO DO???!!!!!!
If our GOP elected personages don't know by now that leftist groups lie, cheat and steal, and they don't check up to see if the law is being enforced, then they are more ignorant. inefficient, lazy and irresponsible than I even thought they were.
ACORN IS BREAKING THE LAW BY ACCEPTING THESE TAXPAYER FUNDS....AND SOMEONE IS BREAKING THE LAW BY PAYING THEM THE MONEY THROUGH THIRD PARTIES.
Can you imagine what would happen to us if we personally cheated the Feds and the taxpaying public at the same time?
Thank God for watchdog groups and elements of the conservative media like Breitbart who actually know the tactics of the enemy and go after them......or we'd be screwed more than we're being screwed now.
Most of our elected GOP reps and senators and their highly-paid armies of staffs and aides and counsels are apparently not doing a damn bit of investigative work when it comes to the tricks of thieving leftist entities. Why not???
Of course, Holder and his army of go-along attorneys at the "Justice" department investigate none of these radical groups or how they're being funded....but this is to be expected.
Leni
Thanks markomalley. It’s your basic Demwit corruption. The party is entirely corrupt, and never does anything but fleece taxpayers. Hey, it beats working for a living.
bttt
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