California ACORN’s Choice: Stay with ACORN or Go It Alone

California ACORN’s Choice: Stay with ACORN or Go It Alone

Post #3 – As ACORN’s continuing turmoil encumbered the California chapter, an alternative – breaking away – became more compelling.

On September 19, 2009 – just over a week after the first of the undercover videos had been released – P.J. Huffstutter and Kate Linthicum reported in the Los Angeles Times (“ACORN scaling back or shutting down in many cities”) that ACORN offices across the country had been shut down; cities without an ACORN presence – where there had been one before – included Chicago, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and Omaha.

There was no ACORN office in Chicago because Illinois ACORN had broken away from the national organization nearly two years earlier and been transformed into Action Now.  Madeline Talbott, the leader who had initiated this transformation, offered an above the fray perspective on the continuing turmoil roiling ACORN.  While empathizing with ACORN’s leaders (her former colleagues), she expressed a sigh of relief at not being stuck in the mess that ACORN was still mired in.

“I’m so relieved not to be part of the organization anymore, and so sad because they are trying to clean things up.”

At that point California ACORN showed no signs – at least publicly – of bolting from the national organization.  Amy Schur (lead organizer of California ACORN at that time; now executive director of ACCE) expressed confidence that California ACORN’s 12 offices would remain open, remarking for the Times’ report that membership had increased and funding was stable.

Membership and funding were closely linked for ACORN because, as Ms. Schur explained to me when we spoke on February 2, individual membership fees were a primary source of funding.  Active members of California ACORN, including all community leaders serving on city and state boards, paid dues of $10 a month.  Many members, she told me, had their dues deducted automatically.  So this was a reliable source of operating revenue.  (And much more significant than the federal dollars that Congress cut off following the hidden camera controversy; she advised me that in 2008 only 7% of California ACORN’s funding – money for foreclosure prevention – was from the federal government, while the figure for ACORN nationally was roughly 10%.)

During our interview, she noted that at ACORN (a national organization with state chapters) some functions were centralized, while others were left to the states.  She described this division as “an interesting mix,” while noting, “There was tremendous autonomy around program,” for the states.  Each chapter’s elected community leaders set the direction of the organization and its activities.  Every city with an active ACORN chapter had a board; representatives of each board sat on a state board.

In speaking with the Times in September, she had pointed to this decentralized structure as ensuring that turmoil for ACORN in one part of the country would not inevitably lead to trouble elsewhere.

“Our organization is under attack,” she was quoted in the Times’ September 19 report.  “But we’re going to come out of this just fine.”

Whether or not Amy Schur and California ACORN activists had already begun to consider breaking away at that point – they might have noted wistfully that their former colleagues from Chicago were no longer weighted down with ACORN baggage.

This was, in any case, only nine days after release of the first surreptitiously filmed video. By the time of ACORN’s October 2009 state board meeting – as the repercussions from that episode continued to play out – the situation had become “a huge distraction,” Amy Schur told me.  She also mentioned the national organization’s financial crisis and the “brand damage” ACORN had suffered.

Whatever reasons there might have been to stay, the reasons for breaking away had grown more compelling.

Next post: California ACORN Was Unified in Deciding to Break Away

Previous posts in this series (after an interview with Amy Schur):

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