ACORN is dead. Isn’t that what we were told after ACORN workers were caught on tape helping undercover reporters evade prostitution laws? In fact, following the media outburst that resulted from the undercover videos, President Obama himself signed into law an ACORN funding ban that included any affiliate and/or subsidiary. And the organization filed bankruptcy.

But as Judicial Watch announced in September with the release of our groundbreaking report, “The Rebranding of ACORN,” rumors of ACORN’s demise were completely fabricated. Far from defunct, the former “community organization” has splintered into difficult-to-track organizations across the country. (Former ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis calls them “bullet-proof community-organizing Frankensteins.”) And, just like their predecessors, these new ACORN spin-offs are prepared to wreak havoc on the 2012 elections.

One of those ACORN offshoots is the Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA), which was previously known as ACORN Housing.

In July 2011 Judicial Watch uncovered a $79,819 grant to AHCOA. The Obama administration claimed this grant did not violate the ban because the two organizations were separate and distinct. We said the two organizations were virtually indistinguishable and the grant was unlawful.

Well, according to The Daily Caller, at least one influential non-profit organization has conducted an audit of AHCOA indicating the Obama administration operated outside the law:

A newly released internal audit appears to indicate that the Government Accountability Office and President Barack Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development incorrectly argued that a specific organization wasn’t ACORN-affiliated.

HUD’s office of general counsel and the GAO have both claimed that Affordable Housing Centers of America, or AHCOA, is not affiliated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. AHCOA formerly called itself ACORN Housing, but changed its name after the 2009 ACORN meltdown.

The Obama administration has awarded more than $700,000 in taxpayer funds to AHCOA despite a 2010 law stipulating that no taxpayer funds could be awarded to ACORN “or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations.”

You can read the audit, which was uncovered by the group Cause of Action, for yourself, here.

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Time after time, we have found that this administration cares not one whit about following basic laws. What does it mean for Congress to pass and the president to sign a law banning a corrupt organization and its affiliates from receiving federal funds? Apparently the Obama administration could care less. As you will recall, the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a grant of $79,819 to ACORN spin-off Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA), despite the fact that Barack Obama signed the ACORN funding ban in October 2009. (And despite the fact that the organization was nailed for misappropriating taxpayer funds!)

We want to know how the HUD can justify this decision. So we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on August 19, 2011, against HUD to obtain records related to the department’s approval of AHCOA as an official “housing agency.”

Pursuant to our FOIA request filed on June 8, 2011, we want access to the following information:

• Any and all records concerning or relating to the approval of Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) as a housing agency under Section 106(a)(2) of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968. This request includes, but is not limited to, a copy of all HUD-9900 forms and supporting documentation submitted by, or on behalf of, AHCOA, as well as all records of communication regarding AHCOA’s approval.
• Any and all records of all applications(s) for grants submitted by AHCOA to HUD.

Judicial Watch’s FOIA request was received by HUD on June 13, 2011, (according to postal records). The agency was required to respond by July 12, 2011. This is about as narrow and simple a document request that Judicial Watch makes. But as of August 19, 2011, the date of Judicial Watch’s complaint, HUD hasn’t turned over a single document, or even indicated when a response can be expected.

AHCOA was previously known as ACORN Housing Corporation, Inc., an ACORN offshoot. ACORN filed for bankruptcy on November 2, 2010. However, as we’ve pointed out many times in this space, the organization lives on in the form of numerous state organizations and various ACORN-allied entities, such as AHCOA.

Importantly, none of these ACORN entities or spin-offs are supposed to receive federal funds! President Obama signed into law legislation known as the Defund ACORN Act on October 1, 2009, and other congressional actions that cut off most federal funds to ACORN “or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations.” Following an ACORN lawsuit challenging the funding ban, the federal courts in New York upheld the constitutionality of the restrictions on August 13, 2010. In June 2011, the Supreme Court refused to hear ACORN’s appeal of this funding ban.

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ACORN employees have been nailed time and time again for fraudulently registering voters (including Mickey Mouse and the Dallas Cowboys football team) — allegedly for the purpose of sweeping Democrats into office. They were caught on tape advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. They were unceremoniously kicked off a U.S. Census Bureau program as a result of a Judicial Watch investigation. And ultimately, the organization was officially cut off from federal funds by Congress and President Obama.

So why is ACORN still receiving taxpayer dollars in defiance of the funding ban? That’s what we’d like to know.

Judicial Watch investigators recently discovered that the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has issued a $79,819 grant to the Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) — an offshoot of ACORN — in apparent violation of the ACORN funding ban passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2009.

Moreover, this grant was provided to the organization less than a year after ACORN/ACHOA was criticized by HUD’s inspector general in two separate investigations for misappropriating funds from federal grants.

You remember the funding ban, right? It was a signature moment for Barack Obama (dubbed the “ACORN President”) when he signed a law on October 1, 2009, known as the Defund ACORN Act, which effectively prohibited the federal government from funding “ACORN and any ACORN-related affiliate.” Following a lawsuit filed by ACORN challenging the law, which passed both branches of Congress by wide margins, the federal courts in New York upheld the constitutionality of the funding ban on August 13, 2010. The Supreme Court last month refused to hear ACORN’s appeal of this funding ban.

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The criminals at ACORN, President Obama’s former employer, never stop ripping off American taxpayers.

The massive conglomerate ACORN Housing Corp. and its subsidiaries owe an eye-popping $162,813 in back taxes, according to the Nexis public records database.

The money is owed to the IRS, California, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, the city of Philadelphia, and the California counties of Fresno and Santa Clara. (The 106 tax liens are listed at the bottom of this article.)

Like a con artist trying to escape his past, ACORN Housing legally changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America Inc. (AHCOA).

ACORN Housing grew out of crime: trespassing and breaking and entering. It emerged from a 1982 squatting campaign in which ACORN built a squatters’ tent city behind the White House. Rampaging ACORN activists routinely break in and illegally occupy property already owned by others – and your tax dollars subsidize this criminal activity, as I write in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

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Judicial Watch recently found that the Obama Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a $79,819 grant to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) offshoot Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). This is an apparent violation of an ACORN funding ban passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2009.

On October 1, 2009, President Obama signed the Defund ACORN Act into law, effectively prohibiting the federal government from funding “ACORN and any ACORN-related affiliate.” ACORN challenged the law in court and lost. The federal courts in New York upheld the constitutionality of the funding ban on August 13, 2010. The Supreme Court last month refused to hear ACORN’s appeal of this funding ban.

A Judicial Watch investigation has revealed that on March 1, 2011, HUD announced a $79,819 federal grant to ACHOA to “educate the public and housing providers about their rights and obligations under federal, state, and local fair housing laws.”

In an apparent effort to remedy the prohibition against funding ACORN or its affiliates, the Government Accountability Office issued an opinion in September 2010 claiming that ACHOA is a separate entity from ACORN. Nonetheless, the government’s own website that lists federal expenditures identifies the organization receiving the $79,819 grant as “ACORN Housing Corporation Inc,” and lists ACORN’s New Orleans, Louisiana, address. Moreover, ACHOA maintains the same board of directors, executive director and offices as its predecessor, ACORN Housing Corporation, Inc.

Fraudulent activity on the part of ACORN Housing/ACHOA is nothing new.

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Why is the Obama administration defying federal law by funding ACORN?

Judicial Watch discovered that the president is flouting the will of Congress by surreptitiously giving federal taxpayer money to ACORN, his former employer and legal client. This is the first such grant to surface this year but more are certain to follow.

Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave a $79,819 grant to a Florida office of the largest branch of the ACORN tree, the massive conglomerate known as ACORN Housing Corp. (AHC). AHC filed papers last year legally changing its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). Despite the nifty new moniker, it’s the same old corrupt, antisocial organization.

As I wrote in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, ACORN Housing grew out of crime: trespassing. It emerged from a 1982 squatting campaign in which ACORN built a squatters’ tent city behind the White House. Rampaging ACORN activists break in and illegally occupy property already owned by others – and your tax dollars subsidize this criminal activity.

The secretary of HUD is Shaun Donovan. Donovan and ACORN are tight. (Donovan and ACORN’s then-chief organizer Bertha Lewis are seen in the above screen grab from footage shot for the documentary film Battle for Brooklyn.)

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Big Government has obtained an advance copy of Homeland Security’s Inspector General report detailing ACORN’s misuse of a federal grant from FEMA.  The report will be released to the public on December 8th. We’ve included it below.

EMBARGOED 12-8-10 DHS IG Report – ACORN Grants

Contacted by Big Government about the report, incoming Chair of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Rep. Darrell Issa, had this comment:

It is really unthinkable that anyone would use the guise of public safety and helping victims of a tragedy like Hurricane Katrina as a calculating way to inappropriately obtain taxpayer dollars.  As the discussion over how to reign in government’s growth and spending moves forward, there couldn’t be a more important time to ensure that the grants awarded with taxpayer dollars meet rigorous criteria and are subject to vigilant oversight to ensure that grant recipients are not given access to taxpayer dollars under false pretenses.”

The key things in the DHS IG’s report were:

• “We concluded that the ACORN Institute should not have received these funds, did not fully implement and evaluate the program as approved, and could not substantiate all its grant expenditures.
• “The FEMA did not have sufficient oversight processes to prevent the award or to fully evaluate the use of the grant money.”
• The Technical Evaluation Panel that reviewed ACORN’s grant request recommended it not be funded but “FEMA overrode the panels’ recommendation and awarded the grant without documenting how it addressed the Technical Evaluation Panel’s concerns.”
• ACORN described an Urban Fire Initiative that did not actually exist until they requested the funding:  “the Urban Fire Initiative did not exist prior to the grant application, but was created specifically for activities funded by the FY 2007 Fire Prevention and Safety Grant.  Neither ACORN Institute nor the Urban Fire Initiative was involved in any of the above activities and events.”
• ACORN claimed partnerships with local fire departments but “there was no evidence of these partnerships were in place…”
• FEMA relied on “self certification” and “has no requirement or standard procedure in the evaluation process of the Fire Prevention and Safety grant applications to validate the legitimacy of significant claims and assertions used to qualify an applicant for the grant…”

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From the Associated Press:

A government audit says the advocacy group ACORN should reimburse the government $3.2 million for failing to adequately show that lead removal work was performed at a reasonable cost.

The auditors also say some grant money was spent inappropriately, including for political campaigns and fundraising.

Congress already has cut off ACORN’s federal funding after allegations of voter registration fraud and embezzlement.

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ACORN may be renamed and rebranded but a new government report details how the organization is up to its same old corrupt practices.

According to Fox News:

An official report released [last] week says an ACORN offshoot group cannot properly account for how it has spent millions of federal dollars and recommends that the group repay the government and be put on standby mode until it cleans up its act.

The report from the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development reviewed how ACORN Housing Corporation — now called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) — has spent federal grant money over the past two decades. The report described the group’s book-keeping as “problematic and unsupported,” and claimed that more than $65,000 in “ineligible” salary expenses were charged to a federal grant last year, including costs for six employees after they were terminated.

(You can read the inspector general’s report in its entirety here.)

Overall, 80% of taxpayer funds distributed to ACORN in 2008 and 2009 were used to pay salaries — even for employees who no longer worked for the organization! That’s right, in a response letter to the inspector general’s office, a representative of the new ACORN spin-off said the organization “does not dispute” the fact that it “erroneously charged” the federal government (read: taxpayers) for employees who had been terminated.

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Citing massive irregularities and gross taxpayer funding abuses, federal investigators are recommending that government funding for ACORN’s still operating housing affiliate be cut off immediately.

Investigators must have felt it was necessary to urge the funding cutoff because the federal government’s prohibition on funding ACORN isn’t a permanent ban. It exists at the whim of lawmakers and runs out at the end of this month. This is the finding of an analysis by Capital Research Center (which has been tracking ACORN since 1998).

Investigators may also have wanted to remind the public that ACORN is still alive. Reports of ACORN’s demise continue to be churned out by misinformed journalists who  amplify the zombie group’s lies. In recent days the Washington Post incorrectly described ACORN as “a dead NGO,” and Slate said ACORN has “stopped existing.” More on this in a moment.

The Sept. 21 report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Inspector General found that ACORN Housing, which changed its name earlier this year to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHC), may have concealed fraud by destroying or failing to produce records.

ACORN violated federal rules on how grants are to be used. The group charged the government salary costs for employees after they were terminated, the report said, and violated federal procurement standards.

The report suggested ACORN corruptly funneled taxpayer dollars to its affiliates and engaged in money laundering. ACORN has taken in more than $19 million in housing counseling grants since 1995 from HUD. NeighborWorks, a congressionally chartered nonprofit, gave ACORN $25.9 million. ACORN Housing has received more than $27.3 million from other federal and non-federal sources, the report said.

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Two weeks ago, I wrote on BigGovernment that the GOP Today is much different than the party was a few years back.  I was glad that my post generated attention, and very pleased to read through the different responses – both positive and skeptical.    Today I write again for two reasons.  First, to announce an exciting new project devised by the House Republican Economic Working Group.  Second, to take another step in earning your trust by showing you that we understand that actions speak louder than words.

We all know that Washington has a spending problem – and both Democrats AND Republicans bear some responsibility.  But as I wrote last week, America is at a crossroads and the choices we make at this critical time will determine what kind of country we want to be.  To get back on the right path, Congress MUST start to make some choices that simply can’t be delayed any longer.

While we won’t be able to solve our deficit problems overnight or with one silver bullet, we CAN and we MUST begin to replace the culture of spending that now dominates Washington with a culture of savings.  Just imagine if your government was as focused on saving money as it is on spending money.  Imagine if Congress spent less time naming post offices – 62 and counting – and more time reducing wasteful spending.  Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Today, we are launching YouCut – a first-of-its-kind project designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress.  It allows YOU to vote, both online and on your cell phone, on spending cuts that you want to see the House – YOUR HOUSE – enact.   That’s right, instead of Washington telling YOU how THEY will spend YOUR money, YOU can tell THEM how to save it.  After several days of voting, on Monday, May 17^th, we will announce the first winner and later that week House Republicans will call for an up-or-down vote on the spending cut.  We will repeat this cycle every week for the rest of the year.

For the first week of voting, here are your choices:

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From the great Peter Wallison in today’s Wall Street Journal:

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, in the wake of the housing bubble and the unprecedented deflation in housing values that resulted, the government’s cost to bail out Fannie and Freddie will eventually reach $381 billion. That estimate may be too optimistic.

Last Christmas Eve, Treasury removed the $400 billion cap on what the government might be required to invest in these two GSEs in the future, and this may tell the real story about the cost to taxpayers. In typical Washington fashion, everyone has amnesia about how this disaster occurred.

The story is all too familiar. Politicians in positions of authority today had an opportunity to prevent this fiasco but did nothing. Now—in the name of the taxpayers—they want more power, but they have never been called to account for their earlier failings.

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From The American Spectator:

ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget blueprint that President Obama unveiled last week.

ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget blueprint that President Obama unveiled last week.

The $3.99 billion comes from a congressional slush fund known as the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) $48.5 billion fiscal 2011 budget. CDBG grants, which are awarded to states and localities, pass indirectly to ACORN.

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Here are a few stories to bring holiday cheer for taxpayers. First, we have an Associated Press report that several hundred thousand federal bureaucrats have serious tax delinquencies. The Department of Housing and Urban Development always ranks high on the list of government entities that should be abolished, so it’s interesting to see that HUD bureaucrats are most likely to be dodging their taxes:

More than 276,000 federal employees and retirees owed back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2008, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service. The $3.04 billion owed was up from $2.7 billion owed by federal employees and retirees in 2007. Among cabinet agencies, the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rate, at just over 4 percent.

This rampant nonpayment is especially outrageous since federal bureaucrats “earn” twice as much compensation, on average, as those of us laboring in the productive sector of the economy. One might think they would go out of their way to comply since their bloated salaries come from tax collections. Speaking of outrage, the internal watchdogs at the Treasury have just published a report showing that it is almost impossible to verify eligibility for the special interest tax breaks in the so-called stimulus. As Investor’s Business Daily opines, this is an invitation to fraud:

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President Obama, in his speech on the economy, given at the Bookings Institute, once again, tried to be all things to all people.  Most of the speech was aimed at the dwindling number of devotees who were anxious to hear that additional taxpayer revenues would continue to flow to favored, pet projects.

Nor were these fans disappointed, for, despite running $1.2 trillion in annual deficits, President Obama has once again promised to borrow from the future to fund yet another round of pork and dodgy projects disguised as infrastructure and green investments.

At the same time the President was busy adding more spending programs to our bloated budget, he insisted, once again, that he was committed to fiscal discipline.  Obama said “We’ve combed the budget, cutting waste and excess wherever we could.”  Really?

What programs have been cut and what sorts of excess were eliminated?  For the curious….here goes.  After several months, Obama’s OMB has released a list of the top four programs that have been identified after an exhaustive search and combing of the federal budget.

The Administration reviewed over 38,000 different ideas, to aggressively root out wasteful practices, many of them submitted by government employees.   After much work, synthesis,and review, OMB announced the four cost-cutting idea finalists:

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As we rapidly approach December 18^th, the day when ACORN is again eligible to receive federal funds, we still have yet to see a meaningful investigation of ACORN.

Last week,  the Inspector General of the Department of Justice released a “Review of Department of Justice Grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Inc. (ACORN) and its Affiliated Organizations.”  Unsurprisingly this report “did not find any DOJ direct grants to ACORN.”  The report did however reveal approximately $200,000 in sub-grants to ACORN affiliates.  This number pales in comparison to the amount of federal money ACORN and its affiliates have received from other agencies.

ACORN and its affiliates have received over $54 million in federal grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  These are the grants that the government should be investigating.  How did ACORN spend these federal tax dollars?  Were they used for their designated purposes?  Does ACORN owe the federal government a refund?

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Citigroup executive Eric Eve (pictured below) has resigned from ACORN’s phony, allegedly independent panel of inquiry, a move that removes one of the few people on the panel who could even remotely claim to actually be independent.

If you read between the lines, it also seems to mean Citigroup agrees the panel is a sham.

Eve, senior vice president of Global Consumer Group, Community Relations, at Citigroup, quit after the National Legal and Policy Center pressed Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit to cut ties with ACORN.

In a letter to NLPC president Peter Flaherty, Citigroup announced Eve’s resignation from the panel.

“We too are deeply concerned about the recent media reports regarding ACORN and, because of those reports, have suspended our charitable financial support and program relationships with ACORN, and we are awaiting the results of the independent audit of ACORN activities now underway,” wrote Natalie Abatemarco, Citigroup’s vice president, Global Community Relations.

“On a related topic, please be advised that Eric Eve has resigned his position on the ACORN Advisory Council,” she added.

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Despite the few voices of caution, risk and leverage had become a national fixation, embraced both on Wall Street and in government. The SEC and the Fed, the main regulators in charge of monitoring the buildup of risky assets on the banks’ books, together with the rating agencies, were the modern-day equivalents of Nero fiddling as Rome burned.The fire in this case was the massive and rapid buildup of mortgage debt on the balance sheets of the banks; by 2006 it was approaching $1 trillion and heading higher without so much as a peep from the traditional watchdogs.

Still, the risk taking and leverage went beyond the brokerage houses and the banks. The GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were in the game as well. By now, Fannie and Freddie had fully and completely conceded their original mandates to the whims of the Washington political class, which demanded “affordable” housing for all, even those who couldn’t afford it. The politicians were giddy with Fannie and Freddie’s conversion from staid mortgage banks to subprime lenders that would make Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of the largest subprime lender in the markets, Countrywide Financial, envious.

It was an evolution that took years in the making. As HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo boasted in one report in the late 1990s that the new mandates he was imposing on Fannie and Freddie to ramp up subprime lending “could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas.”

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From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Federal funding for a housing counseling program carried out by local non-profit groups such as ACORN has more than tripled since 2002, even though it has been criticized by government auditors for failing to show results.President Obama’s budget calls for a 54% increase next year — $100 million in all — for the program, which helps people buy or refinance a home, prevent a foreclosure or find rental housing. The Senate agreed, while the House of Representatives suggested $70 million; final negotiations over the bill are pending.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been unable to provide much proof the program works, according to government reports, despite an increase in funding from $20 million in 2002 to $65 million last year.

The reports found:  (more…)

FoxNews.com reports:

After Census Severs Ties, ACORN May Face Scrutiny of Housing Grants
ACORN Housing Corporation received $1.6 million in federal money to provide housing services to low-income communities in this fiscal year

Conservatives have cheered the Census Bureau’s decision to sever ties with ACORN because it had lost confidence in the group, but the hidden-camera videos that prompted ACORN to fire four workers this week could raise more questions about the federal funding ACORN receives for housing outreach.

ACORN Housing Corporation received $1.6 million to provide housing services to low-income communities in this fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, according to USASpending.gov, a federal government Web site for tracking government grants.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development Grants has given $8.2 million to ACORN in the years between 2003 and 2006, as well as $1.6million to ACORN affiliates.

HUD could not be reached for comment. (more…)