ACORN Housing Finally in Foreclosure

My Front Page Magazine article from July 3:

ACORN Housing Finally in Foreclosure

By Matthew Vadum

The largest branch of ACORN – ACORN Housing Corp.— has finally kicked the bucket despite cash injections from the Obama administration.


Like a con artist trying to escape his past, ACORN Housing legally changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) two years ago after the devastating “pimp and pro” videos surfaced in 2009. In those undercover videos created by conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles ACORN and ACORN Housing employees were shown offering helpful advice on setting up a brothel for pedophiles and breaking other laws. A year later the controlling entity in the ACORN network, ACORN Inc., filed for bankruptcy after Congress cut off its taxpayer funding and left-leaning foundations ran away from it.


After a reliable source in the progressive movement confirmed the demise of AHCOA to this writer, Chicago-based writer Mike Volpe (who blogs as The Provocateur) visited the group’s headquarters at 209 West Jackson Boulevard in the Windy City last week. Volpe confirmed that the nonprofit corporation is no longer there. Building management advised him that the last AHCOA staff members vacated the premises almost two months ago.

Strange: ACORN Housing may be closed but it hasn't filed for bankruptcy

This is odd.

ACORN Housing Corporation, which changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA), has closed its doors.

Yet there is no record of AHCOA filing a bankruptcy petition or being petitioned into bankruptcy, according to the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) database. None. And as of June 30, 2010, AHCOA was in the red by almost $2.5 million according to its most recent publicly available tax return (IRS Form 990).

I know AHCOA shut down because i) a very reliable source within the progressive movement told me so ii) its Twitter feed hasn't been updated in close to a year iii) its website (ahcoa.org) is down and iv) the secretary of state in Louisiana where it was incorporated has ruled that it is "Not In Good Standing for failure to file Annual Report."

According to the Louisiana Secretary of State's office AHCOA hasn't filed any reports since March 21, 2011.


Here is the "Not In Good Standing" report:
Affordable Housing Centers of America "Not in Good Standing" according to Louisiana Secre...


Weird.

BREAKING: ACORN Housing is dead!

I have it on good authority that Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) is dead. Until the devastating "pimp and pro" videos surfaced in 2009 that showed ACORN employees offering helpful advice on setting up a brothel for pedophiles, AHCOA's name was ACORN Housing Corp.

AHCOA's website (ahcoa.org) is down. AHCOA's Twitter feed hasn't been updated since August of last year. View it here.


Despite apparently kicking the bucket some time ago without anyone in the media (myself included) noticing, ACORN Housing has been in the news recently. Earlier this month it was reported that the Obama administration funneled $446 million in taxpayer money to ACORN alumnus Joe McGavin, now a director at the Illinois Housing Development Authority. As Judicial Watch discovered, McGavin was “Chicago Operations Manager” at Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) from November 2008 through January 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile.


Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, a longtime ACORN ally from his days as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's housing development commissioner, steered millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to his old friends at ACORN. Donovan is just one of several Obama cabinet members who did everything but bow down and grovel before Al Sharpton at the convention his group, National Action Network, held recently in Washington, D.C.

For years ACORN Housing was the largest branch of the corrupt ACORN empire of activism.

As I wrote in my book Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, ACORN Housing grew out of crime: squatting. It emerged from a 1982 squatting campaign in which ACORN built a squatters’ tent city behind the White House.


ACORN Housing was a cash cow for the ACORN network, providing significant funding for Saul Alinsky-inspired community organizing. Since 1997, ACORN Housing shelled out more than $5.1 million in fees or grants to other entities in the ACORN network. 

These intra-network transactions are the most troubling because out of all of ACORN’s affiliates, ACORN Housing was the most dependent on taxpayers for support and had a long history of abusing taxpayer funds. In 2008 alone, over 67 percent of gift and grants to ACORN Housing came from the federal government and Bank of America.

Developing...

Note: This story has been updated since it was initially posted.