ACORN Affiliates Spin Off From National Group

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

The controversial group, ACORN, will no longer be the national network it once was. Instead, state chapters are expected to form new, independent groups that will do similar work in low-income neighborhoods.

The dramatic change in the 40-year-old organization is the result of a loss of funding after the release of embarrassing undercover videos. They showed ACORN workers advising a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute, on how to avoid the law.

NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

PAM FESSLER: Call ACORN's New York City office today and this is what you'll get...

Unidentified Woman: ACORN is not providing services in New York. But if you would like to receive information from local organizations with similar purposes, please leave your name, number and mailing address after the beep.

FESSLER: That's because ACORN New York no longer exists. Leaders there decided it would be better to shut down and form a new organization called New York Communities for Change. It's located in the same Brooklyn office and will essentially do many of the things ACORN did: helping low-income neighborhoods with housing, jobs and government services.

Mr. JONATHAN ROSEN (Spokesman, New York Communities for Change): New York Communities for Change is going to pick up where ACORN left off.

FESSLER: Spokesman Jonathan Rosen says, though, that the group won't be affiliated with the national organization. He says the decision to regroup came out of frustration with the ongoing assault against ACORN, largely by conservatives who've called the liberal group a criminal enterprise.

Mr. ROSEN: I think our members were just sick and tired of their work being held hostage, made dictated by a national political conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with the work they're doing here on the ground in New York City.

FESSLER: And it's not just in New York. ACORN's California chapter with its 48,000 members, did the same thing last month, reorganizing into something called the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Bertha Lewis, ACORN's national CEO, says another 10 or 12 state chapters appear ready to follow suit. And she says the remaining chapters might be too devastated by funding cuts to survive. The result...

Ms. BERTHA LEWIS (CEO, ACORN): The national organization would not have on-the-ground local chapters.

FESSLER: She says ACORN will instead be a lot smaller, without the hundreds of thousands of grassroots members it once had.

Ms. LEWIS: We're going to try to continue as the national group to speak out on issues. But how long we'll be able to survive to do that is anybody's guess, because the right has definitely, definitely dealt us a mortal blow.

FESSLER: But while right-wing critics led the charge against ACORN, the group lost broader support after the release of the videos. Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to ban ACORN and its affiliates from getting millions of dollars in federal funds and major foundations that funded ACORN's poverty work also withdrew their support.

But Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King says he's not fooled by a little reorganization.

Representative STEVE KING (Republican, Iowa): If you have the same people in place doing the same things over and over again, just with a different jersey on, nothing changes.

FESSLER: He said he's still waiting for the results of numerous state investigations into the group's operations. ACORN fired the employees in the video and says it's fixed internal problems. It also notes that the Congressional Research Service recently found no evidence that ACORN misused federal funds. The group's also challenging the congressional funding ban in court as unconstitutional, but Lewis says even a favorable decision now would be too late for the organization to survive as is.

Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.