The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has indefinitely suspended funding a national community organizing group that started in Arkansas.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, has received more than $7.3 million over the past 10 years for various projects in dozens of states. Chapters in Little Rock and Pine Bluff have applied for and received numerous CCHD grants to fund programs that serve the poor.
 ACORN funding in Arkansas Click here |
Pulaski County ACORN was in line to receive a $25,000 grant in July when CCHD national headquarters in Washington became aware of financial irregularities on the national level. On June 2, ACORN disclosed that nearly $1 million was embezzled by the brother of the group’s founder from the organization and its affiliates back in 1999 and 2000.
Ralph McCloud, executive director of CCHD, the U.S. bishops’ domestic anti-poverty and social justice program, said the suspension covers all 40 ACORN affiliates that had been approved for $1.13 million in grants for the funding cycle that started July 1, 2008.
“In Arkansas, we have had a positive experience working with them,” said Sister Mary Lou Stubbs, DC, director of Catholic Charities of Arkansas. “It is unfortunate that it appears that the activities on the national level aren’t something we can support.”
Catholic Charities’ Social Action Office makes site visits and monitors the use of the CCHD grants to ACORN offices in the diocese.
The Diocese of Little Rock raised $78,961.73 during its CCHD collection during Masses in November 2007. Larger grants, ranging from $20,000 to $50,000 for economic justice and organizational development, are approved by the national CCHD office. Usually ACORN and one to two other organizations in Arkansas receive a national grant every year.
Twenty-five percent of the collection stays in the state to fund smaller grants, typically between $500 to $2,500.
| ’The chief organizer’ Click here |
Dale Rathke stepped down from his position with the organization in June when the embezzlement became public; no charges were filed against him. Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN in 1970 in Little Rock, stepped down as the group’s lead organizer at the same time but remains chief organizer for ACORN International.
CCHD has hired specialists in forensic accounting to investigate whether any of its grant funding has been misappropriated, McCloud added.
Tom Navin, Social Action Office director, said he visits ACORN offices twice a year “to make sure they are doing what they say they are going to do (with the grant).”
Catholic Charities of Arkansas is not aware that any grants given to Arkansas ACORN offices were misused.
Neil Sealy, chief organizer for ACORN in Arkansas, said, “Our view is that the embezzlement did not affect Arkansas at all. It was a sad and tragic occurrence. The organization has done a great job reviewing what happened and has taken action.”
Sealy said he only learned officially of the embezzlement in June but heard “hints” about it in the spring.
Sealy said he is hopeful that ACORN’s national office will provide the documentation requested by CCHD, and they would allow the grants to be funded.
“If it doesn’t, we will still work with the diocese on immigration and issues that we have in common,” he said.
Since revealing its financial troubles, the organization has come under intense scrutiny because of its voter registration practices. In several states voter registration forms have been found to include nonexistent or dead people. Some registrants have told elections officials they completed multiple cards at the urging of ACORN canvassers who claimed they would be fired if they did not meet a daily quota for signing up new voters.
McCloud released information showing that CCHD funded more than 320 ACORN projects with grants totaling more than $7.3 million during the last 10 years. He said the community organization also had received funds since early in CCHD’s history.
CCHD’s Web site reveals the campaign gave about $1.11 million to 40 ACORN affiliates in 2007 and $1.17 million to 45 affiliates in 2006.
Over the years, some of the funds undoubtedly were used for voter registration drives, McCloud said.
“It probably was,” he told Catholic News Service. “But by the same token, we didn’t find any voter registration irregularities, the allegations we are finding now.”
McCloud also said that CCHD guidelines require that organizations in line for funding “go through a great deal of scrutiny.”
Prior to the awarding of grants, applications from local organizations are vetted at the diocesan level by a funding committee, endorsed by the local bishop, and then scrutinized by the national CCHD staff and a committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, McCloud explained.
“The whole idea is making sure that the efforts of the groups we fund are working in nonpartisan efforts and focusing on the kind of work that we would like for them to do,” McCloud said.
Dennis Lee, chancellor for administrative affairs who previously led the diocese’s Catholic Social Services, said, “We only fund things that are consistent with the Church, and we don’t fund political campaign activity.”
He added, “To our knowledge, (voter registration fraud) is not an issue in Arkansas.”
The organization has not returned several calls from CNS seeking comment about the suspension of funding.
However, ACORN officials are defending the organization’s voter registration practices. During an Oct. 14 press conference, spokesman Patrick Whelan acknowledged that some of the organizations 13,000 canvassers submitted duplicate or false registrations, but said they represented a tiny fraction of the 1.3 million new voters signed up for the Nov. 4 election. He said the organization itself discovered many of the problem registrations.
Traditionally drawn to causes usually backed by Democrats, the 38-year-old organization has conducted organizing campaigns in low- and moderate-income communities on issues such as unemployment, affordable housing, predatory lending, health care, minimum wage and living wage, and immigration. ACORN also has conducted voter registration drives throughout its history by hiring canvassers to go door to door and to visit public sites where people gather.
Catholic News Service contributed to this article.
ACORN funding in Arkansas
ACORN in Arkansas has received $634,000 in grants since CCHD started in 1970, according to the CCHD national office in Washington.
Recent grants include:
2004: Jefferson County, $25,000 for Southeast Arkansas Jobs and Income Initiative
2005: Jefferson County, $25,000 for Southeast Arkansas Jobs and Income Initiative
“These grants were funding a program to raise Pine Bluff city workers to a living wage,” Tom Navin, Social Action Office director, said. “The program was successful.”
2006: Jefferson County, $25,000, to pay for salaries for existing staff and hire and train new staff.
According to the CCHD national office, the Jefferson County ACORN has received CCHD funding 12 times.
2007: Pulaski County, $25,000, immigrant organizing, voter registration in Hispanic community
2008 (suspended): Pulaski County, $25,000, immigrant organizing
Neil Sealy, chief organizer for Arkansas ACORN, said, “We have begun to organize organizations of low- to moderate-income immigrants. … Also, (we used the 2007 grant) to defend immigrants against bad state laws. … We are trying to educate the public how valuable immigrants are to the state. These (proposed) laws (if passed) would harm the overall good of the state.”
’The chief organizer’
Wade Rathke came to Arkansas to give a voice to low- and moderate-income residents.
According to the ACORN Web site, “When Rathke arrived in Little Rock in 1970, he began a campaign to help welfare recipients attain their basic needs — clothing and furniture. This drive, inspired by a clause in the Arkansas welfare laws, began the effort to create and sustain a social justice movement that would grow to become the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now – ACORN.
“The goal was to unite welfare recipients with working people in need around issues of free school lunches for schoolchildren, unemployed workers’ concerns, Vietnam veterans’ rights and hospital emergency room care. Thus, an idea was born that would grow and adapt, thrive and flourish, and become a powerful movement from coast to coast.”
In 1971 ACORN grabbed attention for its Save the City campaign in Little Rock. It then grew to six offices in the state. ACORN also organized farmers to stop construction of Arkansas Power and Light’s White Bluff coal-burning power plant and worked to get like-minded residents elected to the Little Rock City Board of Directors, the Pulaski County Quorum Court and Little Rock School Board.
In 1975 the organization spread to Texas and South Dakota and then beyond. Rathke continued with the organization, now based in New Orleans, for 38 years.
ACORN has more than 1,200 chapters in 110 cities, according to its Web site. In addition to offices in Little Rock and Pine Bluff, ACORN operates a non-profit, bilingual FM radio station in Little Rock, KABF.
