National scandal upsetting to Arkansas group's leaders

Hattie Daniels, a co-chairman of ACORN Arkansas, tears up as she talks about several projects her organization has carried out to benefit low- and moderate-income people in Arkansas.
Hattie Daniels, a co-chairman of ACORN Arkansas, tears up as she talks about several projects her organization has carried out to benefit low- and moderate-income people in Arkansas.

— At a time when ACORN is grabbing national headlines amid allegations of voterregistration fraud and illegal tax-filing advice, the organization's Arkansas chapter has fallen under the radar.

"Here in Arkansas, we're doing what we've alwaysdone - working on issues that affect low- to moderateincome people," said Maxine Nelson, chairman of the Arkansas ACORN board.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now was born in Little Rock in 1970. The group has grown to be a self-described national grass-roots forceclaiming more than 400,000 members in 75 cities.

State ACORN organizers say the group's membership here has increased to a high of 6,000. Members remain active locally; they just aren't courting as much publicity in recent years, said lead organizer Neil Sealy.

"We've been less active in city politics," Sealy said. "A number of federal issues that crucially impact our neighborhoods have been our focus."

What's happening on the national level upsets the local chapter's leaders.

"I don't like what's being broadcast on Fox and so forth. It doesn't show a true picture of ACORN," Nelson said.

She referred to a string of scandals that have slammed the national ACORN organization and its sister group, ACORN Housing Corp.

Last year, ACORN was the subject of voter-registration fraud complaints in Missouri, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, among others.

On Sept. 9, Miami authorities arrested 11 ACORN workers suspected of falsifying hundreds of voter applications during a 2008 registration drive. The organization itself provided police with information that led to the arrests.

On Monday, the Senate voted to block the Department of Housing and Urban Development from giving grants to the group. The House voted Thursday to cut off all federal funds for which the organization might be eligible.

On Sept. 11, Census Bureau officials announced the agency would sever ties with ACORN in an effort to tamp down negative publicity and Republican concerns that the partnership will taint the 2010 head count.

The Census Bureau action followed the airing of videos showing ACORN employees in Baltimore and Washington advising a man and woman posing as a pimp and a prostitute how to get around tax laws and housing program rules.

ACORN fired four employees - two each in Maryland and the District of Columbia - who were seen on the hidden-camera videos, broadcast Sept. 10 and 11 on Fox News Channel.

ACORN's executive director and chief executive officer said Thursday that the group is conducting an internal review of its policies and operations because of the growing outcry over the videos.

FRUSTRATION

Nelson, who has been anACORN member for more than 20 years, said it's frustrating to see the group's name sullied.

"There's an element out there that wants to destroy ACORN because of the work it does," she said. "A lot of people don't want low-income people to be enlightened."

Local ACORN organizers point out that Arkansas ACORN leaders and workers have not been accused of wrongdoing similar to problems seen in other parts of the country.

Sealy said Arkansas' chapter had no census contracts and planned only an educational campaign to persuade residents to complete census questionnaires. The Census Bureau works with hundreds of community and volunteer organizations in unpaid partnership agreements to help it recruit the part-time census takers it needs and to educatelow-income and immigrant residents about the need to be counted.

Neither major political party in Arkansas reported suspecting any illegal election activities by ACORN during the 2008 election season.

ACORN did conduct a voter-registration drive in Arkansas before the 2004 presidential election, registering about 34,000 new voters, including about 20,000 in Pulaski County. ACORN hired the canvassers.

No allegations of fraud surfaced.

"We've been honest about what we've done," Nelson said. "We're not trying to hide anything and we're nottrying to scam anybody. We struggle to keep our office open. If we were getting much money, we wouldn't be facing that struggle."

Arkansas ACORN employs six full-time and three part-time employees, Sealy said.

While national ACORN leaders fend off attacks from conservatives, Nelson said, most state chapters are quietly educating people about the earned-income tax credit, helping them prepare their taxes and counseling them on how to get affordable home loans.

In recent months, members have been assisting residents at risk of foreclosure and people who are trying to buy their first homes.

"We put out 100,000 fliers a year on home ownership and we see about 10 people a week," Sealy said.

The group helped prepare tax returns for almost 1,200 Arkansans this year, he said.

"We require ID and Social Security cards," Sealy said. "We go by the book. We work with the IRS and we're happy for their feedback."

The group is primarily funded by member dues, which are $10 a month.

Much of the organization's work begins at the neighborhood level, Nelson said. The group's message is simple, she said.

"Take an interest in what's going on in your neighborhoods and take responsibility as citizens," she said.

NEW PARTY

In contrast to the group's escalating national profile, Arkansas' ACORN chapter nolonger wields the influence in local politics it did less than a decade ago.

The New Party, a separate political entity affiliated with ACORN, once thrived in Little Rock, but it stopped offering candidates for local races a few years ago.

Local political issues are still important to the group, Sealy said, but they've taken the back burner.

"We're still concerned about growth issues, city services, the condition of rental properties," he said.

ACORN and the New Party once shared neighboring office space and member lists and often mobilized behind the same issues.

The last Little Rock campaign the New Party was involved in was a fight in the spring of 2001 against the Summit Mall, which was never built.

Jim Lynch, former party co-chairman, said the party petered out soon after that because members' attention swiftly turned to national concerns.

"The reason you haven't heard from us is 9/11 happened and George Bush goes nuts and starts a war on the other side of the world that nobody wanted," Lynch said. "It sucked all of the air out of everyone's energy. It was difficult to get people interested in zoning issues."

The party was founded in 1992 in Madison, Wis., by Joel Rogers, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, and Danny Cantor, a community organizer.

The party hit its peak in Little Rock in 1999, with almost 1,000 members living in the city. Little Rock residents made up 5 percent of the group's national membership rolls.

"Little Rock was really considered the shining light because of all the progress we made on the city board," said former Little Rock city director Paul Kelly.

New Party members Willie Hinton, Genevieve Stewart, Johnnie Pugh and Kelly were elected to the Little Rock Board of Directors between 1994 and 1998. Pugh succeeded another New Party member and founding ACORN member Gloria Wilson.

In addition, the party had two members on the Pulaski County Quorum Court, one on the Little Rock School Board and two in the state House of Representatives.

Now, no members are in elected office, althoughACORN's political action committee endorsed and supported Little Rock Director Ken Richardson.

Kelly said the New Party's problem was that it was too successful.

"I think we were getting to be too effective and the pushback was pretty powerful," Kelly said.

Kelly, who lost a re-election bid to Barbara Graves in 2000, said he didn't accomplish as much as he'd hoped during his time on the city board.

"I never really got much of what I was asking for, but we obviously upset a lot of people," he said.

Kelly, a senior policy analyst with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said the city's real estate and development community wanted him out of office because of his stance on sprawl and other related issues.

Kelly believes Arkansas ACORN has had to change because of negative national exposure to the group.

"More than in the past, they're working in larger groups," he said. "Before, theydidn't want to be co-opted by groups that would accept compromises. That has had to change."

Arkansas ACORN members are discussing the possibility of starting a branch of the Working Families Party in Arkansas, but no solid plans have surfaced.

Regardless, Arkansasbased organizers believe their organization will survive the recent storm of criticism.

Kelly points out that ACORN is no stranger to controversy and has weathered challenges before.

"They've been controversial ever since they began. My father hated them for slowing down [Interstate] 630 because of environmental concerns."

Kelly believes negative ACORN stories in other states have made it more difficult for ACORN to focus on the group's mission.

"The fallout of the national stuff has led to a lot of auditing and re-auditing and looking over what everyone does," he said. "That creates a whole lot of staff time and energy and distraction from what really needs to be done."

Front Section, Pages 1, 11 on 09/20/2009

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