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A woman carrying a clipboard knocks on a door in Park Heights. Her pitch is direct: "I'm Michelle from ACORN. We're fighting for change in the neighborhood. I wanted to know what you want to see changed."
The owner, who has lived in this well-worn rowhouse on Shirley Avenue for 50 years, lets her inside. Soon, Michelle Moore is talking rapid-fire about trash piles and abandoned properties and how elected officials would never allow this sort of thing to happen in stately Roland Park.
"Do you want to be part of a group that's organizing to do something about this?" Moore asks.
Door-knocking in poor neighborhoods, the signature activity of the grass-roots Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has changed little since the national nonprofit sent one of its professional organizers to Baltimore to start a Maryland chapter.
Ten years later, this "union for working families" has 6,000 dues-paying members and can take credit for helping reshape the Baltimore City Council, pressing city leaders on urban issues and giving a loud voice to people who had never been involved in politics.
"We work with people who most organizations don't want to work with, and we work in neighborhoods that most organizations don't want to work in," said Stuart Katzenberg, the leader of Maryland's chapter.
But nationally and locally, ACORN has always struggled to makes ends meet, and its in-your-face tactics have alienated many lawmakers, even in Democrat-dominated Maryland. Its nationwide voter registration efforts in urban, heavily Democratic areas have made it a target of Republicans, and it has faced criticism for bad bookkeeping and potentially improper relationships among its many affiliates, some of which are required by law to remain nonpartisan.
Against that backdrop, a baby-faced 25-year-old filmmaker dressed as a caricature of a pimp has imperiled the 40-year-old social justice organization.
James O'Keefe, and Hannah Giles, 20, secretly recorded conversations at ACORN offices across the country while posing as a pimp and a scantily clad prostitute. They captured employees casually dispensing advice on how to avoid paying taxes, how to set up a brothel and how to claim underage South American sex workers as dependents. Five videos have come out so far. The first, released Sept. 10, was recorded in Baltimore. The two part-time employees caught on that video, as well as two in Washington, have been fired.
ACORN's operations have all but ceased while the national organization conducts an internal review related to the recordings, assesses its survivability and establishes new training procedures. A national spokesman said ACORN is considering dropping voter registration altogether. Congress voted overwhelmingly last week to cut off federal funding, and the U.S. Census has severed ties.
It seems that the very nature of the group - and the type of people it attracts as employees and clients, earnest in their overall quest to "speak truth to power" but not always attentive to details - has delivered self-inflicted wounds.
Although the organizers who carry out the core mission of mobilizing are professionals, the nonprofit relies mostly on volunteers and low-paid employees with spotty training to handle its in-office services, which include tax preparation and mortgage counseling.
The Maryland headquarters on West 25th Street in lower Charles Village, where the secret recording was made, is a dimly lit pair of connected rowhouses. The doorbell doesn't work, and a grammatically troubled sign directs visitors to call the receptionist on the telephone. Inside, a clock is frozen at 7:05.
ACORN almost lost the property in 2006 when a group that bought liens because of unpaid city property taxes and water bills sued for foreclosure. About the same time, former ACORN employees were telling the Baltimore City Paper that they hadn't been paid.
The group and its sister corporation, ACORN Housing, which helps low- and moderate-income people buy homes, have repeatedly failed to turn in all the necessary paperwork to maintain their charters in Maryland. By state law, every corporation must submit an annual report and personal property return each year, along with a $300 filing fee.
If a corporation fails to do so, it is listed as "forfeited" and can be prosecuted for a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine. Forfeited corporations do not have standing in Maryland courts and cannot do business with the state and many counties, said Robert Young, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation.
Such oversights have cost the two groups money. City officials gave ACORN Housing about $42,000 in 2005 and again in 2006 for home ownership counseling but took away the 2006 money because of the forfeiture listing.
Katzenberg and state officials say Maryland ACORN has never received state funding. The bulk of its $400,000 budget this year comes from $120 per family annual membership dues and fundraisers, he said.
After filing overdue documents last week, Maryland ACORN is listed as "revived" in state records. The housing corporation is listed as "forfeited," but a national spokeswoman said the paperwork issue should soon be rectified.
Maryland ACORN has seen its coffers shrink amid the national recession. It employs four full-time and four part-time employees (after firing the two part-time employees in O'Keefe's video), compared with 15 full-time employees five years ago.
The owner, who has lived in this well-worn rowhouse on Shirley Avenue for 50 years, lets her inside. Soon, Michelle Moore is talking rapid-fire about trash piles and abandoned properties and how elected officials would never allow this sort of thing to happen in stately Roland Park.
"Do you want to be part of a group that's organizing to do something about this?" Moore asks.
Door-knocking in poor neighborhoods, the signature activity of the grass-roots Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has changed little since the national nonprofit sent one of its professional organizers to Baltimore to start a Maryland chapter.
Ten years later, this "union for working families" has 6,000 dues-paying members and can take credit for helping reshape the Baltimore City Council, pressing city leaders on urban issues and giving a loud voice to people who had never been involved in politics.
"We work with people who most organizations don't want to work with, and we work in neighborhoods that most organizations don't want to work in," said Stuart Katzenberg, the leader of Maryland's chapter.
But nationally and locally, ACORN has always struggled to makes ends meet, and its in-your-face tactics have alienated many lawmakers, even in Democrat-dominated Maryland. Its nationwide voter registration efforts in urban, heavily Democratic areas have made it a target of Republicans, and it has faced criticism for bad bookkeeping and potentially improper relationships among its many affiliates, some of which are required by law to remain nonpartisan.
Against that backdrop, a baby-faced 25-year-old filmmaker dressed as a caricature of a pimp has imperiled the 40-year-old social justice organization.
James O'Keefe, and Hannah Giles, 20, secretly recorded conversations at ACORN offices across the country while posing as a pimp and a scantily clad prostitute. They captured employees casually dispensing advice on how to avoid paying taxes, how to set up a brothel and how to claim underage South American sex workers as dependents. Five videos have come out so far. The first, released Sept. 10, was recorded in Baltimore. The two part-time employees caught on that video, as well as two in Washington, have been fired.
ACORN's operations have all but ceased while the national organization conducts an internal review related to the recordings, assesses its survivability and establishes new training procedures. A national spokesman said ACORN is considering dropping voter registration altogether. Congress voted overwhelmingly last week to cut off federal funding, and the U.S. Census has severed ties.
It seems that the very nature of the group - and the type of people it attracts as employees and clients, earnest in their overall quest to "speak truth to power" but not always attentive to details - has delivered self-inflicted wounds.
Although the organizers who carry out the core mission of mobilizing are professionals, the nonprofit relies mostly on volunteers and low-paid employees with spotty training to handle its in-office services, which include tax preparation and mortgage counseling.
The Maryland headquarters on West 25th Street in lower Charles Village, where the secret recording was made, is a dimly lit pair of connected rowhouses. The doorbell doesn't work, and a grammatically troubled sign directs visitors to call the receptionist on the telephone. Inside, a clock is frozen at 7:05.
ACORN almost lost the property in 2006 when a group that bought liens because of unpaid city property taxes and water bills sued for foreclosure. About the same time, former ACORN employees were telling the Baltimore City Paper that they hadn't been paid.
The group and its sister corporation, ACORN Housing, which helps low- and moderate-income people buy homes, have repeatedly failed to turn in all the necessary paperwork to maintain their charters in Maryland. By state law, every corporation must submit an annual report and personal property return each year, along with a $300 filing fee.
If a corporation fails to do so, it is listed as "forfeited" and can be prosecuted for a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine. Forfeited corporations do not have standing in Maryland courts and cannot do business with the state and many counties, said Robert Young, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation.
Such oversights have cost the two groups money. City officials gave ACORN Housing about $42,000 in 2005 and again in 2006 for home ownership counseling but took away the 2006 money because of the forfeiture listing.
Katzenberg and state officials say Maryland ACORN has never received state funding. The bulk of its $400,000 budget this year comes from $120 per family annual membership dues and fundraisers, he said.
After filing overdue documents last week, Maryland ACORN is listed as "revived" in state records. The housing corporation is listed as "forfeited," but a national spokeswoman said the paperwork issue should soon be rectified.
Maryland ACORN has seen its coffers shrink amid the national recession. It employs four full-time and four part-time employees (after firing the two part-time employees in O'Keefe's video), compared with 15 full-time employees five years ago.
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Yes, it is corrupt but so are republicans and conservatives, when we point fingers as if somehow one groups is better than the other we lose our perspective, yes, Acorn should be disolved but the ideology of Acorn should live, the financial industry did the same thing its called "greed", whenever as a society we decide to return to the basic of life our country will again return to its greatness, maybe we have to go there to see who we really are,what we are capable of producing. Do we have it in us to do better?
tavami (09/21/2009, 3:30 PM )