State ACORN leaving national organization

Orange County Register
January 13th, 2010
By Martin Wisckol, Politics reporter

Moving to separate itself from its troubled parent organization, the California chapter of ACORN has announced this morning that it is splitting off from the national group.

The 40-year-old community organizing group focuses on issues facing lower income residents, including housing and lending inequities. Critics have accused the group of voter-registration fraud, and a sting video made last year showed ACORN workers advising a woman posing as a prostitute how to launder earnings.

The California chapter hopes to move forward more easily with its efforts under its new structure.

If you don’t already see it below, click on the prompt for the Associated Press story.


By EVELYN NIEVES Associated Press Writer

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – The California chapter of ACORN has become the first to split from the troubled national organization, citing politically motivated attacks against the parent group and its own internal failings for making the state group’s job too difficult.

Amy Schur, former head of the California branch, said Wednesday that board members from the state’s 11 chapters decided that it was in the best interests of the low and moderate income people they served to start fresh with a new nonprofit group, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE.

“This obviously has been hard,â€