Opinion
 |
ACORN wants another $6 million despite scandals
By: Kevin Mooney
Commentary Staff Writer
09/14/09 9:13 PM PDT
An ACORN affiliate has just submitted applications for over $6 million in government funding, despite the controversial videos of the organization’s workers aiding a child prostitution “promoter.”
Employees with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in Washington D.C., Baltimore and Brooklyn told uncover investigators posing as a pimp and a prostitute how they could circumvent the law. ACORN has already fired four of the workers. But it claims the tapes have been “doctored” and “edited.”
A third video implicating the ACORN workers was released today. Meanwhile, the ACORN Institute, one of many ACORN affiliates, has applied for over $6 million in grant money for broadband projects. ACORN and its various affiliates have received at least $53 million in federal funds since 1994.
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) have announced that they have received about 2,200 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding that applies to all 50 states and Washington D.C.
This funding included as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It has been set up to “help bridge the technological divide and create jobs building Internet infrastructure,” according to the NTIA.
ACORN Institute has filed two separate applications with the Commerce Department. One in the amount of $3,172,042 and the other in amount of $2,999,903.
The grant description reads as follows:
“The Digital Empowerment Project bridges the digital divide in low-income and minority populations by promoting adoption through grassroots outreach, training participants in computer centers; and providing in-home computers and broadband access. This approach is based on research-driven practices and ensures an efficient and scalable effort to facilitate broadband in disadvantaged populations.”
Former and current members of the organization now active with ACORN 8, a whistleblower group, have called for a federal investigation. Michael McCray, a spokesman for ACORN 8, told The Examiner that funding should be withheld until after there is a forensic audit.
As The Examiner has previously reported, ACORN remains eligible for over $8 billion in federal funding through stimulus money and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Follow The Examiner
