UPDATED same night. For clarification…see
below
Remember
that story from a few days ago, the one about the Obama
administration giving ACORN a $79,819 grant in March despite a
federal law that prohibits the government from giving money to
ACORN?
It turns out that sum is a lowball figure.
I discovered Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) gave ACORN another $461,086 in January.* The funds were
earmarked for ACORN Housing Corp. in January under HUD’s
Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP), according
to the government website USAspending.gov.
In order words, the Obama administration gave fraud-ridden ACORN
nearly a half million dollars to be used on housing
development.
The administration isn’t even trying to conceal the fact that it
gave this money to ACORN. USAspending.gov
identifies the recipient as “ACORN Housing Corporation Inc.”
even though that nonprofit entity filed papers last year
legally changing its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America
(AHCOA).
The website also provides the address of record for ACORN
Housing as 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana.
That’s the renovated funeral home that until recently served as
headquarters for ACORN’s 370-plus shady affiliates.
This means the Obama administration has given at least $540,905
in taxpayer money to ACORN this calendar year alone.
The money was given to ACORN apparently in defiance of
Public Law 111-117 which spells out in pretty clear terms
that ACORN shouldn’t be getting any government funding.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. More grants to ACORN are
bound to surface.
As I warn in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN
Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American
Taxpayers, ACORN is still with us, doing its best to
destroy American capitalism and democracy.
The group is gearing up right now to make sure President Obama,
who worked for ACORN as an employee and as its lawyer, gets
reelected in 2012. Its state chapters have adopted assumed names
and remain active. Project Vote, ACORN’s vote manufacturing
factory, continues to operate unmolested in ACORN’s Washington,
D.C. office. ACORN International (a.k.a. Community Organizations
International) has spreadwide worldwide and is now operating in
many countries, including Canada, Peru, Kenya, Dominican Republic,
and India.
(Buy the book at Amazon. Visit
the Subversion Inc. Facebook page. Follow me
on Twitter.)
* Developing…
After this article was published, HUD spokesman Jereon M. Brown
contacted the writer by email. Brown acknowledged the government’s
USAspending.gov database reported that the $461,086 HUD grant was
made to ACORN Housing, but said the award was actually rescinded.
“This amount was de-obligated and recovered,” he said.
Intriguingly, ACORN Housing (a.k.a. Affordable Housing Centers
of America) reports in its most
recent publicly available tax return (PDF) that it took in
$6,184,168 in government grants in the fiscal year that ran from
July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010 (see page 9 on the PDF).
Public Law 111-117, signed Dec. 16, 2009 by President
Obama, states that “[n]one of the funds made available under this
Act or any prior Act may be provided to
the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN),
or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations.”
[see p. 80 of PDF] [emphasis added]
