|
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States and internationally that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. At its peak ACORN had over 500,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the U.S.,〔 as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado. Its U.S. offices filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on November 2, 2010, effectively closing the organization.〔(ACORN filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy ); Los Angeles Times; November 2, 2010〕 Many ACORN members and organizers formed new statewide organizations.〔 ACORN has conducted voter registration drives, as well as working to remove systemic barriers to registration of low and working-class voters. The Republican Party regularly alleged that it committed voter fraud, but few cases have been found or prosecuted. The organization conducted its own audits and cooperated with investigations of employees, referring some cases to law enforcement. ACORN suffered an extremely damaging nationwide controversy beginning in the fall of 2009 after two conservative activists secretly made and released videos of staged interactions with low-level ACORN personnel in several offices, portraying them as encouraging criminal behavior. Some media publicized the videos without investigation. These videos were later found in several independent law enforcement investigations to have been partially falsified and selectively edited by the activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles.〔 The organization suffered an immediate loss of funding from government agencies with which it had contracts, and from private donors prior to the results of any investigations. Legislative amendments to spending bills in the United States House and Senate prohibited government funding of the group. Four different independent investigations by various state and city Attorneys General and the GAO released in 2009 and 2010 cleared ACORN, finding its employees had not engaged in the alleged criminal activities and that the organization had appropriately managed its federal funding. Their reports described the videos as deceptively edited to present the workers in the worst possible light. The loss of funds had been too damaging and by March 2010, 15 of ACORN's 30 state chapters had already closed.〔 ACORN announced it was closing its remaining state chapters and disbanding. Some state chapters have reorganized to continue operations under different names. == Organization == ACORN was composed of a number of legally distinct nonprofit entities and affiliates including a nationwide umbrella organization established as a 501(c)(4) that performed lobbying; local chapters established as 501(c)(3) nonpartisan charities; and the national nonprofit and nonstock organization, ACORN Housing Corporation. ACORN's priorities included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, better public schools, labor-oriented causes and social justice issues. ACORN pursued these goals through demonstration, negotiation, lobbying for legislation, and voter participation.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=ACORN (press release) )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|