Government Report Cites ACORN Offshoot for 'Ineligible' Payments, Grant Problems

From A Tiny ACORN Does A Mighty Scandal Grow

An official report released this week says an ACORN offshoot group cannot properly account for how it has spent millions of federal dollars and recommends that the group repay the government and be put on standby mode until it cleans up its act.

The report from the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development reviewed how ACORN Housing Corporation -- now called Affordable Housing Centers of America -- has spent federal grant money over the past two decades. The report described the group's book-keeping as "problematic and unsupported," and claimed that more than $65,000 in "ineligible" salary expenses were charged to a federal grant last year, including costs for six employees after they were terminated. 

The report said more than $19 million from HUD went to the organization since 1995, and that about 80 percent of the $3.25 million received between 2008 and 2009 went toward salaries. 

"For continued approval as a HUD-approved housing counseling agency and for future awards consideration, AHC must bring its operations into full compliance with applicable laws," the IG report said, recommending that it be placed on "inactive" status by the federal housing department. 

The study is the latest blow to the beleaguered low-income advocacy group ACORN and its offshoots. After Congress voted to cut funding to the main organization following the release of undercover videos that showed its workers appearing to help a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute, the organization's affiliates and chapters have been reorganizing under different names. 

ACORN Housing Corporation, which was formed in 1985 by ACORN organizers, changed its name this year to Affordable Housing Centers of America. 

The IG report recommended that the organization reimburse the government for the $65,000 in "ineligible" expenses -- and either provide support for other salary costs or reimburse that money as well. 

A memo released Sept. 7 by the Department of Housing and Urban Development agreed that the group should either "provide documentation" to support its expenses or reimburse the government. 

The department "will evaluate if inactive 'status' is warranted," the memo said. 

In response, a representative for Affordable Housing Centers of America wrote in a Sept. 10 letter to the inspector general's office that "almost all" personnel records unavailable during the audit "have now been located." The response also said the group instituted an "electronic time-keeping system" to record how grant money is applied -- a reform that "satisfies" one of the recommendations in the report. 

The response said the organization "does not dispute" that expenses for terminated employees, as well as expenses for prior-year costs, were "erroneously charged" to the federal government. 

However, Affordable Housing Centers of America argued that it should not have to repay the money because the group "incurred substantial other allowable costs" last year that it did not charge to Washington. 

"Importantly, none of the findings suggest that funds were misused or that counseling work was not performed," the response said, adding that the group will work "constructively" to improve its operation. 

The inspector general study was requested by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

"It doesn't matter if it's $10 or $10,000 -- there is no acceptable amount of abuse or mismanagement that the federal government should tolerate when it comes to the taxpayers' dollars," Issa said in a written statement.

FoxNews

Another Obama Pig in a Poke? (Video)

Andrew Breitbart just may be a media genius. 

He proved it originally with his brilliant handling of the ACORN 'hooker' scandal which he skillfully manipulated so that the corrupt media was forced, against its will, to broadcast corruption in one of Obama's most powerful political support groups. 

But Breitbart's handing of that affair is nothing compared to his brilliant manipulation of the Shirley Sherrod 'white farmer' scandal. It all began last Monday, July 22, 2010.  As the country watched in horror, Breitbart released a snippet of a tape on his "Big Government" site which showed an obscure black female official of the Dept. of Agriculture laughing to a roomful of NAACP members about how she'd discriminated against a destitute white farmer and refused to give him the financial aid he desperately needed. 

As she smirked to the room, she'd sent him instead to a white lawyer - 'one of his own kind' - for help. 

The black woman was Shirley Sherrod - and almost immediately she became the center of a firestorm of controversy which exploded throughout the country.  Within a day of the release of that infamous tape, the head of the Dept. of Agriculture, spurred on by Obama, demanded - and received - Sherrod's resignation. 

Breitbart had won. But then seemingly Breitbart's actions began to explode in his face.  As Sherrod screamed in protest, FOX News released the entire text of her speech last March to the NAACP.  And there on tape Sherrod was shown supposedly repenting of her racism against a white farmer and instead championing his fight to win funds to keep his farm afloat. 

Within hours of that entire tape being revealed, the entire world turned against Andrew Breitbart. 

Conservatives throughout the country were enraged that he'd endangered their reputations by releasing a 'doctored' tape.  Breitbart, they thundered, had dealt a fatal blow to the conservative media.  I confess that I also was horrified at what I saw as the clumsiness and stupidity of Breitbart in 'doctoring' a tape to make a supposedly innocent woman look guilty. 

But now I discover I have been as guilty of haste to judgment of Breitbart as the Dept. of Agriculture was of Ms. Sherrod. Only now am I realizing the real purpose for Breitbart's release of that tape snippet.  It was to allow him to cunningly trick the media into exposing one of the most shocking examples of corruption in the federal government - a little known legal case called "Pigford v. Glickman". http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/07/27/pigford-v-glickman-86000-claims-from-39697-total-farmers/

"In 1997, 400 African-American farmers sued the United States Department of Agriculture, alleging that they had been unfairly denied USDA loans due to racial discrimination during the period 1983 to 1997."  The case was entitled "Pigford v. Glickman" and in 1999, the black farmers won their case.  The government agreed to pay each of them as much as $50,000 to settle their claims. But then on February 23 of this year, something shocking happened in relation to that original judgment.  In total silence, the USDA agreed to release more funds to "Pigford".  The amount was a staggering $1.25 billion. 

This was because the original number of plaintiffs - 400 black farmers - had now swollen in a class action suit to include a total of 86,000 black farmers throughout America.

There was only one teensy problem.  The United States of America doesn't have 86,000 black farmers.  According to accurate and totally verified census data, the total number of black farmers throughout America is only 39,697.  Oops. Well, gosh - how on earth did 39,697 explode into 86,000 claims?  And how did $50,000 explode into $1.25 billion? 

Well, folks, you'll just have to ask the woman who not only spearheaded this case because of her position in 1997 at the "Rural Development Leadership Network" but whose family received the highest single payout (approximately $13 million) from that action - Shirley Sherrod.  Oops again. http://beforeitsnews.com/story/110/024/Is_There_More_to_Sherrods_Dismissal.html

Yes, folks.  It appears that Ms. Sherrod had just unwittingly exposed herself as the perpetrator of one of the biggest fraud claims in the United States - a fraud enabled solely because she screamed racism at the government and cowed them into submission.  And it gets even more interesting.  Ms. Sherrod has also exposed the person who aided and abetted her in this race fraud.  As it turns out, the original judgment of "Pigford v. Glickman" in 1999 only applied to a total of 16,000 black farmers.  But in 2008, a junior Senator got a law passed to reopen the case and allow more black farmers to sue for funds.  The Senator was Barack Obama.

Because this law was passed in dead silence and because the woman responsible for spearheading it was an obscure USDA official, American taxpayers did not realize that they had just been forced in the midst of a worldwide depression to pay out more than $1.25 billion to settle a race claim.

But Breitbart knew.  And last Monday, July 22, 2010, he cleverly laid a trap which Sherrod - and Obama - stumbled headfirst into which has now resulted in the entire world discovering the existence of this corrupt financial judgment.  Yes, folks - Breitbart is a genius.

As for Ms. Sherrod?  Well, she's discovered too late that her cry of 'racism' to the media which was intended to throw the spotlight on Breitbart has instead thrown that spotlight on herself - and her corruption.  Sherrod has vanished from public view.   Her 'pigs', it seems, have come home to roost.  Oink!

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