Inadequate Record-Keeping Cost Acorn Housing $130K
by Kevin KaneFrom Steve Beatty, Pelican Institute’s investigative reporter:
More than two years before an ersatz pimp and prostitute raised troubling questions about Acorn Housing Corp.’s financial advice, Louisiana officials criticized the organization’s bookkeeping as it denied the group tens of thousands of dollars from a potential $1.5 million state contract.
The office overseeing the contract recommended against rehiring Acorn Housing in part because it couldn’t document its work. The contract was designed to inform low-income residents about the Road Home program and help them apply for post-hurricane benefits.
A much smaller $53,000 contract that Acorn Community Land Association had with the state attorney general’s office also was criticized for thin financial justification, though the group got its full payment and was recommended for future work. The contract was to tell hurricane victims of non-discriminatory housing policies as they sought temporary rentals.
In both contracts, the state files contain promotional materials extolling the virtues of paying for an ACORN membership – a solicitation expressly forbidden under the contracts.
“If you are not rich, you need to join your ACORN community group and work on the problems affecting you,” reads one flier in the attorney general’s file.
Several governors, including Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, have frozen payments to ACORN or its hundreds of affiliated groups. The state has no current contracts, but records revealed the two expired contracts that paid the organizations more than $700,000.
ACORN officials did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
In the larger of the two state contracts, Acorn Housing was paid $671,000. However, it asked for much more: $801,000.
In the final evaluation of the contract, the state said Acorn Housing achieved the goal of reaching some of the targeted potential Road Home applicants, but it recommended that the state not rehire Acorn Housing.
That’s mainly because Acorn Housing kept lousy records, said Belinda Kennedy, who monitored the contract for the state’s Office of Community Development.
In the end, she rated Acorn Housing as being in “marginal compliance” with the state contract.
“There were items they were billing that we couldn’t account for,” she said in an interview this week.
Overall, the state said the invoices on file in the Acorn Housing office didn’t always match what was submitted to the state, some travel expenses couldn’t be confirmed or justified, and that the hours worked by employees weren’t always properly billed.
The final review of the contract said that Acorn Housing worked face-to-face with 629 households and another 159 over the phone in the 10 months between December 2006 and September 2007. Its subcontractor, working in rural western Louisiana parishes more affected by Hurricane Rita, reached more people, for a total of 2,099 households served by the contract.
Kennedy worked with Acorn Housing officials to try to clear up the bookkeeping problems, visiting the New Orleans office four months after the contract ended. She said she encouraged agency officials to work to justify some of the questionable billing.
“We never heard back from them,” Kennedy said.
More background on this story can be found here.
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29 Comments
That is the party line that ACORN extolled through its very existence: Class Warfare.
ACORNS modus operandi has never been about giving someone a hand up, it has always been about a hand out.
A partisan, criminal organization that should not exist. I am beginning to think they rigged the 2006 and 2008 elections as well. I keep asking myself, "Would Mr. Obama be the POTUS if ACORN never existed?". We all are thinking it. They probably STOLE the last two elections. How do we become an HONEST country again?
Wade is the new Slave master. He had funds funneled to him. Black servants did the hard work and the money is safe in his pocket. financial fraud cases refuse to provide document trails.
Wade and dale are modern slavery. Exploiting the poor blacks.
For a man that was from Wyoming, Wade Rathke sure learned the plantation system fast when he moved south to Arkansas, and eventually to Louisiana
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I also think the "soft bigotry of lowered expectations" was at work in the cases cited in this article. The state should've refused to pay the sketchy stuff, which would've reduced their contract payments significantly. Government is overly willing to make allowances for poor performance. I guess they figure anyone desperate enough to want a government contract is to be pitied, not scrutinized.
Breitbart needs to send someone with a video camera over to Shreveprot-Bossier City and check out Rathke's Mob Connection up North. Follow the money to the old Bossier Bank and Trust; check out Rathke's Casino Connections. All the corruption in Louisiana is not in New Orleans
Bossier City Bank and Trust………
Soft bigotry of low expectations. The hallmark trait of all liberal policies. Implemented as a means to keep the slaves ON the plantation… never to help them off. I'm all for a hand-up but hand-outs are eating this country from within.
It's the old, "scam the system" ad-nauseum.
Excellent article on the death of the MSM:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1556...
" While there is a great deal of talk about a Military Industrial complex, the real threat is a Media-Academic complex, in which liberals have used their cultural and educational sway to enforce their viewpoint as a consensus."
Media-Academic Complex; "MAC", I like that new term………..
“There were items they were billing that we couldn’t account for”………“We never heard back from them”
Here's a novel idea, how about a thorough audit and then criminal charges filed. That behavior transcends hubris and ignorance.
The reality behind ACORN's success as a criminal enterprise is that it is essentially a black organization which plays the race card in the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson tradition of you-can't-touch-me race hustling . It's why the gutless white liberal media rolled over and played dead no matter how egregious ACORN's election fraud or accounting crimes had been until now.
Too bad blacks in this country haven't figured out that the white liberal media and politicians aren't their friends. They have essentially designated blacks as a racial category not required to be held to the same ethical standards as whites and Asians. How racist is that. Compare and contrast the editorials and coverage of Bernie Madoff versus ACORN's nationwide fraud and financial extortions. And, trust me, the MSM will as soon as possible put ACORN back on ignore status.
A CROOK IS A CROOK!!!!!!. The color of someone's skin (be it white or black) DOES NOT EXCUSE someone (or ACORN) from receiving and abusing taxpayer's money.
If you're a business owner and the IRS comes after you, you MUST HAVE records to back you up. The same should apply to any individual or group that receive's taxpayer $$$$ — even if you're supposedly helping the poor!!!!.
An organization such as ACORN only fills the deep pockets of Unions and aids in fraudulent elections!!!!
Question: Is ACORN simply a microcosm for our government as a whole? Both organizations have one goal: Power. Both are designed to have the best interests of the American people in mind, but continually do nothing but serve their own interests. Unfortunately, both are now corrupt institutions. They both claim to have no ulterior motives, but to any functional person, their motives are all too obvious. While claiming to represent the American citizen, both of these institutions are only interested in what they can swindle out of them.
"White people just don't understand our culture!"
And black people don't understand that (well-meaning?) while people gave them that culture with welfare handouts and unnecessary Affirmative Action initiatives. Why do they want to keep it?
Really, once Jim Crow laws were gone, everyone should have stopped right there. Tolerance and acceptance were naturally growing. And like every other minority group does and has done, since white people were the new minority on this continent, if you are not getting ahead then work harder! Instead, enforced preferences have yielded reinforced perceptions of inferiority, they need to be propped up. And ACORN and their like demand even more supports?!
The major difference is we have elected officials we can get rid of, so their greed is tempered. With ACORN, with varying levels of rot from the roots to the top and little to zero accountability, all they care about is getting whatever they can.
Government is best reformed rather than eliminated. With ACORN, that tree should be cut down, the roots dug up, and the pieces burned to prevent the contamination from spreading. Maybe something better will grow in its place.
Although given how things tend do go with organizations like that, I am thinking it would be a good spot for a parking lot.
Acorn may be out of business but there are plenty more left wing community organizers still around, like this group, recently awarded about millions of our money to weatherize homes of the poor. Didn't realize CA got so cold!
Stimulus or Graft
Several governors, including Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, have frozen payments to ACORN or its hundreds of affiliated groups. The state has no current contracts, but records revealed the two expired contracts that paid the organizations more than $700,000. (Courtesy of Kevin Kane)
So will ACON be paying this back? They Should!
We can pay off a huge portion of Husseins deficit with the Money we paid to ACON. ARP = ACON REPAYMENT PROGRAM
It was more like $30/head for the services, and $200/head for the Rathkes.
Except that as weatherization seals up a house and adds insulation, it also keep air conditioned cold air inside and lowers electric bills, which would be very applicable in CA.
This is a type program that is offered in Pennsylvania by utilities since it reduces demand on overloaded systems and puts off major capital investment in upgrades, the electric company PPL being an example. We also have some state programs that do such work along with their providing of heating assistance. A "community organization" really does not seem the best agent for such a program, with far less accountability.
Because up until the point that our country instituted these policies the black population overwhelmingly voted Republican. The Dems needed a way to pull them into their power base and promising just enough in conjuction with the message that the other guys don't want to give it to you because they are racist. did precisely that.
They were soliciting memberships, so their revenue per head was probably significantly higher.
this type program is available to those who pay their bills
there is the problem
True, Cowboy. That's because the people at the tip-top of the "help-the-poor" food chain have no intent to help the poor. Their intent is to avoid the specter of poverty for themselves with, hopefully, not a lot of heavy lifting. Look at ol' Dale Rathke. He looks pretty healthy and affluent, and he got that way how? By helping the poor, of course. What a bunch of losers, taking advantage of those who can least afford it!
$671000 / (629+129+2099) = $232.42/head
Just over $230 for what may be a single phone call? And (technically) they were not even selling anything, just getting and giving some info? Wow, nice work if you can get it.
Your tax dollars at (something like) work.
Gotta love these old ACORN vids!
More fun than Cspan re-runs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU&fe...
I don't know why the AG waited so long to go after these guys, but at least he's investigating them now.
My friend worked for ACORN Housing after Katrina and told me numerous times that their National Manager of Housing Counseling attempted to get them to lie on timesheets, make up work done and was angry when staff and lower level managers wouldn't. Why doesn't someone contact former employees? Maybe because their Executive Director and Field Manager has threatened to sue anyone who talks!These people are evil and didn't do anything to help the citizens of New Orleans!
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