HUD IG Exposes More ACORN Fraud

As public funds continue pouring into ACORN coffers, a federal investigation reveals that the crime-infested community organization embezzled millions of dollars for “housing counseling” in the last year and destroyed documents to hide the fraud.

The scope of ACORN’s (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) money laundering is actually impossible to fully track, according to a scathing report issued this week by the Inspector General of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the government agency that gave the Chicago-based group more than $3 million in the last year to “counsel” troubled home owners.

However, investigators determined with certainty that ACORN violated HUD laws and policies by spending nearly 80% of its “housing counseling” funds to pay the salaries of its employees, even after they were terminated. Between 2008 and 2009, the scandal-plagued leftist community organization illegally used $2.5 million of the $3.3 million it received from Uncle Sam to help financially struggling homeowners, investigators found.

Additionally, investigators said that they could not determine what activities the ACORN employees performed for the money they received. Considering the millions of federal and non-federal dollars made available in 2008 and 2009, the group’s “inability to fully support salary expenses allocated to the HUD grant raises serious concerns about the integrity of those charges,” the report says.

Since 1995, HUD has awarded ACORN nearly $20 million in “housing counseling” grants despite the group’s documented history of corruption. Famous for voter registration fraud and embezzlement, ACORN was deemed a criminal enterprise after a congressional probe revealed the group engages in systematic fraud by laundering federal money to pursue a partisan political agenda and manipulate the American electorate.

When Congress cut a chunk of its federal funding late last year, ACORN simply changed its name in an effort to shed its criminal history and retain its public and private cash flow. ACORN affiliates from coast-to-coast — including New York and California — have broken away and assumed new identities in order to dump the group’s crooked reputation.

Fortunately, this didn’t fool HUD’s Inspector General who states in his report that the subject of his probe, ACORN of Chicago, now operates as Affordable Housing Centers of America. You can call a dog a pig, but it’s still a dog.

Judicial Watch has extensively investigated ACORN, its strong ties to President Obama, its intimidation tactics, involvement in the housing market meltdown and fraudulent voter registration drives. Click here to see public records and other documents involving ACORN scandals. A mere name change can’t possibly erase the history.