Thread: ACORN Owns $50M in Low-and-Moderate Income NYC Housing

'Nut'-house empire

ACORN grabs up $50M in city homes

By BRENDAN SCOTT Post Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:39 AM, September 21, 2009
Posted: 5:23 AM, September

ACORN has quietly become one of the Big Apple's biggest owners of low- and moderate-income housing, amassing a real-estate empire worth at least $50 million, The Post has learned.

New York ACORN and a tangled web of affiliates own or manage nearly 1,500 housing units across three boroughs and draw in an estimated $5.7 million in rents, fees and profits from sales.

The properties are controlled by an opaque collection of nonprofits, holding companies and development funds. Many have generic names, like the 385 Palmetto Street Housing Development Fund or the Mutual Housing Association of New York, leaving no clue of their ties to the national ACORN conglomerate.

A mighty real-estate empire grows from an ACORN:

Founded in 1987, MHANY now owns more than 80 homes and apartment houses across Brooklyn and brought in some $2.5 million in revenue in 2007, according to a Post review of state and federal filings.

Such income helps support at least 18 local ACORN affiliates largely based at the 2-4 Nevins St., Brooklyn, address ACORN shares with the left-of-center Working Families Party.

Among them is New York ACORN Housing Company, which was thrust into a political firestorm last week after two of its employees were caught in a national hidden-camera sting giving shady financial advice to two conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.

Local ACORN housing companies share a president, Hazel Desant, an executive director, Ismene Speliotis, and identical boards.

ACORN reports no compensation for the board members, although it disclosed that 10 directors -- all save Desant -- hold leases in ACORN-owned buildings ranging in value from $5,900 to $11,000 annually.

Six of the directors owed a total of $8,700 in rent as of June 2008, according to the agency's most recent filing. Speliotis reported an annual salary of $60,773 in 2007.

An ACORN spokesman says all of the community group's properties were acquired through city, state and federal affordable-housing programs and, as such, lack any resale value.

"New York ACORN Housing is one of the top providers of managers of affordable housing in this city or anywhere in the United States," spokesman Jonathan Rosen said.

"The Bloomberg administration has turned to New York ACORN housing again and again to help realize the city's vision of developing more affordable housing for New York's working families."

New York ACORN Housing Company owns or manages several ACORN properties, including four multi-family dwellings in East Harlem and two sparkling new Brooklyn housing complexes.

Since 2000, ACORN has managed an 85-unit housing complex in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx.

Additional reporting by Rich Calder

brendan.scott@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nut_ ... sR3fQD31GL

We can, without a doubt, bet that we'll find out there's plenty more of it outside of NY too

Why does ACORN own anything? How much money are people like Pelosi, obama, etc. making off this deal......real estate holdings purchased with billions in taxpayer money?

When are people behind this going to start going to prison? I, for one, want my money back

Audit, Audit, Audit!

ACORN grabs up $50M in city homes

Barney Franks is probably partners in this scheme.