From the NY Post:ACORN has quietly become one of the Big Apple's biggest owners of low- and moderate-income housing, amassing a real-estate empire worth at least $50 million, The Post has learned.
New York ACORN and a tangled web of affiliates own or manage nearly 1,500 housing units across three boroughs and draw in an estimated $5.7 million in rents, fees and profits from sales.
The properties are controlled by an opaque collection of nonprofits, holding companies and development funds. Many have generic names, like the 385 Palmetto Street Housing Development Fund or the Mutual Housing Association of New York, leaving no clue of their ties to the national ACORN conglomerate.
Founded in 1987, MHANY now owns more than 80 homes and apartment houses across Brooklyn and brought in some $2.5 million in revenue in 2007, according to a Post review of state and federal filings.
Such income helps support at least 18 local ACORN affiliates largely based at the 2-4 Nevins St., Brooklyn, address ACORN shares with the left-of-center Working Families Party.
Among them is New York ACORN Housing Company, which was thrust into a political firestorm last week after two of its employees were caught in a national hidden-camera sting giving shady financial advice to two conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.
From the NY Post:
Despite a string of scandals that recently led Congress to cut off its federal funding, ACORN still stands to make millions of dollars off its support for Brooklyn’s controversial Atlantic Yards project, The Post has learned.
The left-wing organization -- longtime boosters of the $4.9 billion NBA arena and residential- and office-tower project -- says it expects to be tapped to market and help decide who gets to live in the coveted, but long-delayed, 2,250 affordable-housing units planned for Atlantic Yards.
This, after Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner helped bail ACORN out of financial trouble last September with a $1 million loan and a $500,000 grant, according to memos.
Although contracts are not yet been signed, Ismene Speliotis, executive director of ACORN’s New York chapter, told The Post her organization “expects to play a role in the marketing and lease-up” of the Prospect Heights project’s affordable housing to be underwritten by the city.
The work would include community outreach and screening people to determine qualified applicants, and then scandal-scarred ACORN would be entrusted with overseeing a lottery system to choose who gets the housing. Ratner’s firm is expected to manage the housing.
When asked how much ACORN might make off Atlantic Yards, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development referred questions to Ratner, who said via a spokesman it wasn’t the “appropriate time” to make such “decisions.”
But Anita MonCrief, a former ACORN official-turned-whistleblower, estimates the anticipated deal could bring the group $5 million to $10 million annually over multiple years from the public and private sector based on other housing deals ACORN has nationwide.
ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis trying to pull a fast one with Develop Don't Destroy's Daniel Goldstein:
15 comments:
Why are conservatives so hung up on little ACORN when the real criminals are on this list, stealing billions of tax dollars every year?
Excuse me, conservatives?
These are people who helped waged a phony grass roots campaign to prove "support" for Atlantic Yards, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that will end up costing us more than it's worth and will use eminent domain for private gain.
I also don't understand the rationale behind debating who "the bigger criminal" is when we should be going after all of them.
Crime is crime whether big and small; now I understand why politicians like Joe Crowley want to keep ACORN around -- to pad his wallet.
It's sad that a group that has such potential for good doesn't see why it can't assist low-lifes.
When my ceiling was being driven onto my head, they were one of the few who tried to get me into safe housing.
I am amazed to discover that there was such a widespread pattern of aiding and abetting the foulest of crimes including exploitation of children and wonder what they were thinking.
My, my, my...how that little "Acorn" has grown into a huge oak of questionable dealings!
I wonder if the Rev Al Sharpie has a hand in it?
After all it is Brooklyn based and dosn't he keep a mistress in a fine landmark home in Ditmas Park?
Acorn is a conduit to furnish politicians with lots of cash and soft money. This organization needs to be audited and if wrong doing is rampant, all involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Accountability is the key word in the Acorn scenario. Public dollars fund this organization.
Acorn is a conduit to furnish politicians with lots of cash and soft money. This organization needs to be audited and if wrong doing is rampant, all involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Accountability is the key word in the Acorn scenario. Public dollars fund this organization.
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This opens up questions on everything that just seems to oddly voice support for the 'Cult of Development' that is foisted on us by the developers and politicans.
The Green Party. Transporation Alternatives. New Yorkers for Parks. The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. Art and waterfront groups along the East River. Affordable Housing advocates. East River Development Alliance?
any more suggestions?
no accusations, just wondering out loud.
I was introduced to ACORN and met Bertha Lewis in 1991. I happened upon an article in the NY Daily News while I was recouperating from an achilles tendon tear. My wife and I had declared bankruptcy and our credit was less than stellar. Yet we were paying very high rent,$1600. per month for an apartment in Bayside Queens, with the dream of home owership all but gone.
We traveled to Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on many occasions where we underwent credit counseling classes, met with advisors and ultimately bankers, eventually realizing our dream.
The helped us repair our credit and ultimately we were able to buy our home, in Bayside, in 1995. We received our mortgage from Chemical Bank, now Chase, and pay less then we were paying in rent at the time.
My point is that we should not give up on ACORN because of a few bad apples. They are a great organization and Ms. Lewis is one of the most caring and intelligent people I have ever come in contact with.
When an organization gets as big as ACORN it's hard to oversee every employee in every office. Don't let ACORN fall, I know that my wife, my son and I are forever in ACORN's debt.
We have been in our home since 1995because of this wonderful organization.
As a side note, I am a white male, who was down on his luck and they didn't look down on me or turn me away. I now hold a prestigious position and our combined income is over six figures.
THANK YOU ACORN & BERTHA LEWIS.
Anonymous # 1:
So your crime fighting theory is that until we catch and convict the extremely worst of all criminals, nothing should be done by any authority to catch and convict those criminals whose crimes are less extreme?
So, your policy is to concentrate all crime fighting on one single criminal at a time, starting with the very worst?
What would you do, when you've identified and concentrated on the very worst, and, along comes a criminal even worse that that one?
Drop everything until the newest worst case is resolved?
What if still another far worse case comes along in the middle of that one?
When do you just decide to round up as many as possible, day after day, catching and convicting all grades of criminals as best as possible?
"My point is that we should not give up on ACORN because of a few bad apples. They are a great organization and Ms. Lewis is one of the most caring and intelligent people I have ever come in contact with."
I hear Enron was good to their employees, too.
"We have been in our home since 1995because of this wonderful organization."
1995 was almost 15 years ago.
The organization was under the radar back then but now is about as corrupt as they become.
Anonymous said:
"My point is that we should not give up on ACORN because of a few bad apples. They are a great organization and Ms. Lewis is one of the most caring and intelligent people I have ever come in contact with."
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And Hitler loved dogs and children. At least he loved the children he wasn't tossing into gas chambers.
If the mission of ACORN is so great, then there will be others, who can be honest and who understand that the use of tax dollars requires a degree of integrity and transparency far, far greater than is found in your local newsstand (or newspaper, for that).
They will take over the mission.
In the meantime, ACORN must be shut down. The politicians who thrived off that corruption must be removed. Dumped is the term.
New record! It only took twelve posts to get to Hitler. Godwin's Law
In this case, it was an intelligent analogy. Just because people do good, doesn't mean they are good and frequently they are covering up their bad behavior. John Gotti assuaged his guilt with free parties for his neighborhood every year. Doesn't make him any less of a killer.
Back in the 80's and 90's they were giving "seminars" on how to apply for welfare in NYC , and then how to get an address in Newark and apply for welfare in NJ.
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