Whoops! It turns out Obama gave ACORN $541K this year, not the $80K previously reported

Updated the same night: Developing...see the bottom of this entry.

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]