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RALEIGH — Embattled community organizing group ACORN has four offices in North Carolina, but none is known to have the kinds of problems that have drawn bipartisan criticism in Congress this week.

Videotapes, including one that shows ACORN employees giving questionable advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute, have fueled ongoing controversy about the group. Although Republicans and conservative talk shows have characterized ACORN as rife with corruption, its North Carolina leader says the group shouldn’t be judged by bad behavior elsewhere.

“There are no such problems that have occurred here in North Carolina, and there’s no way those kinds of things would have cropped up,” said Pat McCoy, state director for the group. “We feel that our track record over the past few years is something to be proud of.”

Even so, McCoy said it’s reasonable for people to have questions. News & Record readers have asked, for example, about ACORN’s voter registration work and involvement in the census.

ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, had offices in North Carolina from the late 1970s into the mid-1980s,  McCoy said.

The group did not re-establish a physical presence here until opening a Charlotte office in 2004, McCoy said.

The group has nine employees in the state who work to organize low- and moderate-income residents. In some cases, the work may involve landlord-tenant disputes or preventing foreclosures. In Durham, for example, ACORN and its volunteers confronted a landlord they labeled a “slum lord.”

ACORN also has lobbied the General Assembly for laws such as raising the minimum wage, enacting the earned-income tax credit and guaranteeing paid sick leave for low-income workers. ACORN has lobbied for health care reform and helped organize a bus trip to Washington about the issue.

McCoy said the group opened in Greensboro in May and has been involved in “some tenant problems,” worked on foreclosure prevention and begun talking to immigrant communities about issues.

In 2008, ACORN claimed to register 28,000 voters in North Carolina. But about 120 forms the group submitted from Durham caught the attention of the State Board of Elections.

“We have tied up everything except for a referral to the Durham County District Attorney’s Office,” said state elections Director Gary Bartlett, adding he could not say more because law enforcement was investigating the case. Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline did not return a phone call.

McCoy said his understanding was that law enforcement was looking at specific individuals and not the group itself. Guilford County Elections Director George Gilbert said Greensboro-area elections officials have not had problems with the group.

Questions about ACORN also have surrounded its status as a “partner” with the U.S. Census Bureau. Partners help promote participation in the population count.  “We’re not currently involved in any census work,” McCoy said, adding that his group didn’t get any money from the census.

Shelly Lowe, a census spokeswoman, said there are 60,000 to 70,000 partners, including Target stores and Goodwill, that sometimes promote participation in the count.

“No money changes hands. Nothing is involved with hiring or conducting the census, none of that,” Lowe said.
 

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com