THE DAILY CALLER
“The tale begins in 2007, when the ACORN Institute, an affiliate of ACORN, applied for a $1 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of the Department of Homeland Security.
To justify asking for a cool million to work on fire prevention, something it had no experience in, the ACORN Institute created a new organization called the ‘Urban Fire Initiative.’
ACORN claimed the Urban Fire Initiative had partnered with local fire departments in North Carolina and California and had removed debris, and therefore fire hazards, from thousands of homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
But according to a report obtained by The Daily Caller from the DHS Office of Inspector General, none of that was true.
‘The Urban Fire Initiative did not exist prior to the grant application, but was created specifically for’ applying for taxpayer dollars, the report says, adding that neither ACORN nor the Urban Fire Initiative was involved in any of the fire prevention efforts it listed as its experience in that field….”
Cont.
Findings: DHS Financial Assistance to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and Its Affiliates (excerpt)
“The fiscal year 2007 grant to ACORN Institute was for a pilot program that would develop best practices for community organizations to canvass high-risk neighborhoods and distribute and install safety equipment, such as smoke detectors or fire extinguishers. We concluded that the ACORN Institute should not have received these funds, did not fully implement and evaluate
the program as approved, and could not substantiate all its grant expenditures. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not have sufficient oversight processes to prevent the award or to fully evaluate the use of the grant money….
we are recommending that the Federal Emergency Management Agency review all of ACORN Institute’s grant expenditures, take action to recover any unsubstantiated expenses, and determine whether any action is necessary to suspend or debar ACORN Institute from receiving future DHS, FEMA, and other federal government assistance….”
You really cannot make this stuff up. We are surrounded by jackasses. How is it that FEMA dropped the ball….again? ACORN as we all know in 2009 was defunded (for a little while anyway).
Pursuant to the aforementioned report, FEMA refused to heed the advice of the Technical Evaluation Panel who reviewed ACORN Institute’s FY 2007 Fire Prevention and Safety Grant application.
In spite of this panel’s recommendation not to deny funding to ACORN, FEMA gave ACORN Institute, New Orleans a $450,484 grant that is now is untraceable.
I am fed up with ACORNs constantly being allowed to bilk taxpayers.
This is fraud, a swindle and it is time to start sending ACORN people to jail, not from the bottom up, the top down.
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