CARSON IS "UNQUALIFIED" TO PELOSI YET SHE WON'T RETIRE AFTER 2016 LOSSES

CARSON DEEMED "UNQUALIFIED" BY PELOSI YET SHE WON'T RETIRE AFTER 2016 LOSSES:

CARSON IS HIGHLY QUALIFIED AND PELOSI NEEDS TO RETIRE OR DEMS WILL NEVER WIN AGAIN.


Sources: AP, CNN, YouTube


****** Huckabee asks Pelosi if she's 'racist or just dumb' after Carson remarks


Huckabee is a surrogate for Trump.
Pelosi's office called his remarks "name calling".
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee slammed House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi for her comments on the decision to tap Ben Carson as head of Housing and Urban Development, asking if she is "racist or just dumb?"

Huckabee, who became a Trump surrogate after he dropped out of the 2016 Republican primary, tweeted on Monday, "Ben Carson is first HUD Sec to have actually lived in gov't housing. Fancy Nancy Pelosi says he's not qualified; is she racist or just dumb?"

A spokesman for Pelosi told CNN on Monday that "name-calling" is "beneath" Huckabee.

"This nomination is universally viewed as bizarre and the nominee is clearly unqualified. Name calling like this is beneath the dignity of even Governor Huckabee," Drew Hammill told CNN in an email.

He added: "No one seriously thinks Ben Carson is qualified to do this job."

CNN contacted a spokesman for Carson to clarify whether he lived in government housing as Huckabee's tweet claims -- Carson's spokesman sent a tweet from the retired neurosurgeon's confidant Armstrong Williams.

Williams tweeted Monday, "Dr. Carson's mother worked 3 jobs at a time to keep them out of public housing, but he grew up around many who utilized housing programs."

In a statement released earlier on Monday, Pelosi said Carson is "a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice" for HUD secretary, adding there is "no evidence that Dr. Carson brings the necessary credentials" to the role.


Carson has never held a government position and campaigned in the Republican presidential primary largely on his qualifications as a pediatric brain surgeon and his personal story.

Housing Slump & Foreclosure Remedy? Section 8 Voucher Renters!

Housing vouchers a golden ticket to pricey suburbs

It was clear that Liza Jackson’s luck had changed when she drove her pearl-white Dodge sedan, the one with the huge pink plastic eyelashes over the headlights, into Pinebrook, an eight-year-old subdivision where residents tend to notice cars with huge pink eyelashes.

“There goes the neighborhood,” one homeowner said when she heard that her potential new neighbor had a federal housing voucher known as a Section 8.

But Jackson could well be Pinebrook’s salvation, a means by which landlords can rent an empty, crime-magnet of a house to a tenant with a steady, government-backed check.

From Jackson’s point of view, the dismal housing market appeared as a glorious reversal of fortune: Fresh swaths of suburbia were opening up to the very people it has so often excluded.

She had seen one house, and now she rolled up to another, a tan three-bedroom with red shutters. She got out and looked around, a vaguely glamorous vision crossing the grass in a long, leopard-print dress. She peeked into the windows, making out what appeared to be vaulted ceilings.

“Dang,” Jackson said approvingly.

She put the house, a foreclosure turned rental, on her list of possibilities.

The reasons for this irony are mostly familiar. A steadily dropping homeownership rate, 5 million to 11 million more foreclosures in the pipeline, and a raft of investors buying them up have led to a proliferation of rentals in the land of lawns and cul-de-sacs.

But as housing prices keep slipping and the economy remains shaky, there’s been another shift as more landlords view the approximately 2 million American families with a Section 8 voucher — which essentially subsidizes fair-market rent for people who can’t afford it — as among the best ways to fill an empty house.

“It’s guaranteed money,” said David Benham, who owns several rental properties and is a founder of the Benham REO Group, which sells bank foreclosures to investors in 35 states. “It has a great accountability program with the renters. I love Section 8. I wish every one of my properties was Section 8.”

So for a group of Americans previously blocked from certain neighborhoods by “not in my back yard” politics, high prices and a lack of rental options, this is a minor bonanza. Those with a Section 8 voucher, a key federal program for the poor, are a fraction of those who need it; waiting lists are full and years long. But they are a lucky fraction. In the recession-era economy, the voucher is becoming a golden ticket to almost anywhere, a point hardly lost on Liza Jackson, whose cellphone was now ringing Lil Wayne.

“Yes?” she said, answering in the prim manner she described as her “white voice.” “I had called about the four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath? Yes. Liza. Like Minnelli.”


Jackson and her daughter Sheena, 24, were saying goodbye to a cramped two-bedroom townhouse in Honolulu, a city she described as “not all it’s cracked up to be, if you’re black,” and “all high maka maka,” which is Hawaiian slang for unduly expensive.

Jackson had planned the move for months, perusing rentals on Section 8 Web sites that offer everything from chic new condominiums in Miami to four-bedrooms in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Atlanta. Jackson decided on Charlotte, where she could get more square footage for her family, which included Sheena, Sheena’s 5-year-old son, Shamahrie, and her two dogs, Coco Chanel and Mamacita. She saved up from her job as a baker, shipped the car and booked a room at a cheap hotel off the Billy Graham Parkway.

Now it was early June, and she and Sheena were at a briefing at the Charlotte Housing Authority office, a normally dreary place that was bustling like a booming real estate firm.

By 8 a.m., more than two dozen hopeful people were streaming in, having taken overnight buses from New York, Baltimore, New Jersey and elsewhere, where they lived in public housing, or run-down neighborhoods, or places they hoped to escape.

“I want to be around all this fresh air,” said Evelyn Lifsey, who was moving from a Staten Island public housing project. “My moving truck is on standby.”

A housing counselor ended the briefing by handing out a list of Zip codes.

“These are areas with better amenities, more jobs, better schools,” she said, encouraging people to scout them.

Jackson received a folder with her voucher, a prized possession that people spend years on waiting lists to acquire. Jackson’s was $1,032, possibly more if utilities were included or if she found a place in a pricier Zip code. Her contribution was about $200 a month.

She looked over the list of houses she’d compiled: a few older homes and others in subdivisions such as Linda Vista, Running Deer and Pinebrook, a tidy if slightly fraying neighborhood where some homes once sold for $180,000.

“I don’t want to live in some ghetto,” Jackson said in the brawny tone of her native Boston, and it seemed she would not have to. Soon, she and Sheena were zipping down Interstate 85.

It was a sunny afternoon in Charlotte, an ambitious city of mirrored skyscrapers and green suburbs whose last big wave of house hunters was full of bank employees, high-tech workers and other professionals.

Now there was Jackson, who receives unemployment, and Sheena, who gets child support for Shamahrie. Riding along, they fielded calls from agents, some of whom seemed quite eager.

“Yes, hello, Debbie!” Jackson said into her phone.

“Yes, I did receive my voucher,” she said to another agent.

“Yes, I did get my voucher,” she said to another.

Their list of possibilities was growing.

“Just look at all these trees!” Sheena said as they sailed past a blur of highway forest.

“Here you can just drive and drive,” Jackson mused, imagining a better life.

If she was cramped in Honolulu, here she had higher standards. At least three bedrooms. Hardwood floors, preferably. An open kitchen.

They wound their way to the first address, which turned out to be the sort of Section 8 offering typical of the boom years: a small, 1970s-era brick number with dirt patches in the front yard.

“I’ll put ‘[Heck] no’ next to this one,” Jackson said, making a note.

She hit the gas, passing two young men in shorts and tank tops.

“Uh-oh, street punks,” Jackson said, further disqualifying the area.

She steered back onto the interstate, and after a while exited onto Sunset Road, a winding, semi-rural stretch with a run of white split-rail fencing.

“Oooh,” Sheena said, impressed.

They passed a couple of young men in shorts and T-shirts walking along the road.

“Uh-oh, street punks?” Jackson said, unsure which class distinction applied.

“Nah, they look like some going-to-school street punks,” said her daughter, who claimed a finer social radar.

They pulled into Linda Vista, a winding maze of 2,000-plus-square-foot homes.

“This is quiet livin’,” Jackson said, rolling along. “I’d hate to see something ghetto in here.”

Most yards were well kept, though a few were weedy, and here and there, vinyl siding was curling off houses. There was a Mercedes-Benz in one driveway, and old trucks and minivans in others. There were some vacant homes.

They pulled up to one, a gray three-bedroom with a white picket fence. They walked around the house, gold sandals in the clipped grass, and looked through the windows. Sheena was sure neighbors were staring.

Jackson knew that despite stereotypes people might have of Section 8 tenants, she would be an ideal neighbor for these economic times. She had cleared up her credit. She had savings, enough to pay her share of the rent in advance. She was upstanding, planning to attend school to become certified to draw blood. And once she moved, she would stay.

She was what Linda Vista needed, she realized: stability.

If Jackson decided to apply for it, she would contact the owner, Sabre Value Asset Management. The house, which the firm bought in a short sale for $90,000 last year, is one of about 150 it has acquired across Charlotte and Atlanta. All are rentals.

“Our goal is to try to provide a win for everybody,” said the firm’s president, Aaron Edelheit, describing the enterprise as a stabilizing force.

Jackson’s possible Linda Vista neighbors were warming up to that idea.

“I have nothing against Section 8,” said Cassandra Coleman, a homeowner. “Rich, poor, anyone can be a good or bad neighbor.”

She had been laid off from Bank of America for three years. Her mortgage was in trouble. She spoke with the sense that she could probably use a voucher herself.

Jackson realized that her own good fortune was partly due to such misery, but mostly, she and Sheena were thinking about a huge walk-in closet they’d seen.

“You know how many shoes you can put in there?” Sheena said. “I’m trippin’.”


After several days of looking, Jackson had seen at least a dozen houses that were supposed to represent the rewards of middle-class betterment but that were beginning to strike her as a bit shabby or “peasy.”

She did not want some of the peasy carpet she’d seen, or peasy refrigerators or dented, peasy front doors.

She drove again along Sunset Road, which she had decided was not peasy, at least not yet.

She drove by Elizabeth Oaks, one of the newest and most upscale subdivisions, where the builder had recently pulled out. The model home was now a rental.

She drove into Pinebrook, where one resident had dreaded the notion that a Section 8 tenant might move in. Others took a more practical view.

“If you don’t let go of your hang-ups, you’re going to be stuck with an empty house,” said Crystal Campbell, a homeowner who got laid off from Bank of America and recently found a job in the corporate offices of the Family Dollar discount chain.

By now, Campbell had accepted the revised facts of her existence. She could not move because her home’s value had dropped by half. Section 8 renters were not the enemy of Pinebrook but the friend. The house next door needed a tenant.

But Jackson was ever more discerning, and she wasn’t sure about Pinebrook. There were other places to consider. She had so many choices, including a renovated 2,500-square-foot “gem!” beyond I-485. With her Section 8 voucher in hand, she got in the sedan with the pink plastic eyelashes and headed there next.


View Larger Map


Sources: Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina's Terrible Mental Health System Investigated By Feds!

Feds Launch Probe Of N.C. Mental Health System


The U.S. Justice Department has opened a formal investigation into North Carolina's struggling mental health system, the first step in a process that could trigger a federal edict for sweeping reform.

The probe is the result of a complaint filed in July by the advocacy group Disability Rights North Carolina, which contends that the state is violating the Americans With Disabilities Act for failing to provide proper housing for people with mental illness.

Nearly a decade after the state Department of Health and Human Services closed thousands of beds in government-run psychiatric hospitals as part of a reform effort, more than 6,400 people with severe mental illness are housed in adult care homes scattered across the state, living in sometimes squalid and dangerous conditions.

The mental patients, their care typically paid for with taxpayer money, are often far younger than the elderly residents with whom they are housed. In the last two years, at least four residents with mental illness have been killed by fellow patients who had histories of severe mental illness and violence.

Vicki Smith, the executive director of Disability Rights, said the federal investigation could force the state to take actions to fix the mistakes made during North Carolina’s 2001 reform effort, which has also resulted in people with mental illness routinely languishing for days in emergency rooms because no bed in a psychiatric facility is available.

Word of the federal investigation also comes as the state is debating further cuts to the state’s mental health system and moving to close Dorothea Dix Hospital.

“Now DHHS is going to have to answer a whole series of questions about why mental health reform has failed,” Smith said. “This is huge, from our point of view. Huge.”

The Justice Department informed the state of its pending investigation through a five page letter received by DHHS administrators in Raleigh on Thursday. However, the state department did not publically reveal the news until it issued a three-sentence media release earlier today, hours before the start of the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Renee McCoy, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said there would be no comment beyond the media release, which said the state will “work with the Department of Justice to provide all necessary documents and information in response to the complaint.”



Budget Cuts Hitting North Carolina's Mental Health System With Vengeance


Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and social anxiety disorder, Vinh Gazoo has been in a psychiatric hospital five times.

Recently released from jail after a six-month sentence stemming from a crime resulting from his mental health issues, Gazoo says he now survives week to week because of the Mental Health Association in North Carolina.

nonprofit association that helps mental health patients, the organization helps pay for his medication. Its employees and volunteers drive him to doctor's appointments and therapy sessions.

Gazoo was notified this week that those services have been dropped because of state budget cuts.

The $19 billion state budget resulted in a nearly 12.75 percent or $738 million decrease in the Department of Health and Human Services' anticipated $5.54 billion budget for the fiscal year.

About $75 million of DHHS's community services $390 million budget, which helps fund the Mental Health Association was cut, according to executive director John Tote.

"The cuts we have been waiting on from the General Assembly, they're here now, and they're hitting with a vengeance," he said.

Now, the Mental Health Association is laying off approximately 40 percent of its employees.

"Those 175 folks – in the positions they have – affect the lives of about 2,000 individuals across the state (who have) significant mental illness," Tote said.

He estimates approximately 4,000 mental health providers across the state will soon be out of work. The result, he says, will be thousands of patients without services.

Tote blames lawmakers, saying they were much more concerned with politics than providing services for DHHS.

Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange, who serves on the state House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services and also chairs the mental health legislative committee, agrees.

Insko says she doesn't think most lawmakers fully grasped the budget cuts and the impact they would have. For many people with mental illness, she says, there is no safety net other than emergency rooms and mental hospitals.

"As an advocate, it's galling," Tote said. "As a person, it's sad – terribly sad."

For Gazoo – now, his option is a walk-in clinic, but he says he has no way to pay for the services he needs and no way to get there. He says he'll likely either wind up back in jail or in a psychiatric facility.

"That's the two choices I have, because without my medication, I get pretty violent," he said.



Feds Indict Former Chief Of Charlotte Non-profit Group Serving Mental Health Patients


The former leader of a Charlotte nonprofit mental health agency has been indicted on charges that he embezzled nearly $150,000 from the program.

Prosecutors said in court documents Wednesday that 50-year-old Edward Gerard Payton directed employees of Mecklenburg Open Door to provide him loans or payment advances. Authorities contend he actually embezzled the money, and only repaid part of it.

The court documents also say Payton used agency credit cards and vehicles inappropriately.

The documents contend that Open Door shuffled funds that belonged to clients when regular funds ran short because of Payton's activities. One charge says Payton was warned about the seriousness of his activities by the agency's former CFO, but continued to embezzle. The indictment claims Payton used the money to pay alimony, child support, and tax liens.

Mecklenburg Open Door ran several group homes and helped manage finances for many mentally ill and homeless clients. Payton was the agency's executive director from 2006 to August of this year. He was fired after the board of directors confronted him about the money.

Mecklenburg County severed its relationship with the agency in Nov. 1. They have since hired a new agency called Monarch to take over its responsibilities.

Payton was arrested Wednesday. Court records don't list an attorney, and a message left at a phone number listed in his name was not returned. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of his five counts.

Mecklenburg County has reacted to the scandal by changing its standards for county contractors like Mecklenburg Open Door. Outside agencies will now be required to have yearly audits of finances.

"We're actually going beyond what general accounting standards require to make sure that Mecklenburg County residents know we are watching their money," said Jennifer Roberts, chairwoman of the Mecklenburg County Commission.





Kenneth Jermaine Chapman's Death vs Carolinas Medical Center's Racist System


Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System has been previously sued on numerous occasions by several African-American families for Racist Medical practices leading to premature, medically preventable deaths.

Many of those lawsuits were quietly settled with families of those Black patients who died due to intentional improper care or NEGLIGENCE.

Such lawsuits and bad reputation is the reason why Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System now exist instead of Charlotte Memorial Hospital, the old CMC.

Thus its safe to say Carolinas Medical Center and Charlotte Memorial Hospital are one in the same.

How do I know this?

I always do my research and I talk to people personally affected by what I post on my Blog.

People will tell me things they might not disclose to the Charlotte Observer because the Charlotte Observer has a history of practicing Biased reporting and Discrimination in its publication of articles.

Kenneth Jermaine Chapman was an African-American Charlotte citizen who recently killed three members of his family and later himself.

Prior to his destructive actions he desperately sought Mental Health Care assistance from Charlotte's Carolinas Medical Center.

In fact he sent out an S.O.S. which was intentionally ignored.

Mr. Chapman clearly, verbally expressed to CMC Staff he had thoughts of hurting others and killing himself.

Did CMC Staff report his thoughts to Charlotte DSS even though they knew this man had minor children in the home?

NO!

They didn't give a darn because Ken Chapman was Black and wasn't an affluent citizen.

Now if Ken Chapman had connections with an Affluent, Politically-connected Black Charlotte citizen, than of course they may have taken Mr. Chapman's situation more seriously, but because he was just a poor Black man they didn't give a darn!

The result?

A Black Man who killed his wife, two of his children and than later himself.

If you think Jennifer Roberts (board chair) and the other Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Commissioners are seriously concerned about this matter or seriously concerned about investigating Mr. Chapman's case...DON'T BET ON IT!

If you think Charlotte's weak, scared Black Leaders are going to speak up...DON'T BET ON IT!

The only two Charlotte-Meck. County Commissioners who do really care, Harold Cogdell Jr. & Vilma Leak (both African-Americans) will be blocked from doing anything constructive by Jennifer Roberts (board chair), "Ms. N.C. Corruption" herself.

This tragic incident helps to further demonstrate how Racism is deeply woven into all facets and levels of Charlotte, NC's community, including the Health Care System.

Charlotte's other main Medical Center, Presbyterian Hospital isn't much better.

Its a private facility where Blacks go in but don't come out.

Presbyterian Hospital also has a long history of Black Patients needlessly dying but that's a story for another day.

As I was saying Carolinas Medical Center's staff intentionally did NOT prevent Mr. Chapman's death, nor did they help protect his family however.....

I'll bet Mr. Chapman's surviving relatives receive a huge bill for his so-called "treatment".

In fact thousands upon thousands of African-Americans within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Region have Carolinas Medical Center Medical Bills on their Credit Reports.

Many of those bills are decades old.

Many of those bills are due to Billing errors from Carolinas Medical Center.

Many of those bills are due to Carolinas Medical Center INTENTIONALLY overbilling Black patients.

How does Carolinas Medical Center skirt Federal Law as it relates to Medical Bills which are older than 7 years old?

Carolinas Medical Center pays Equifax, Experian and Trans Union Credit Reporting agencies to sell those old Medical bill accounts to Debt Collectors, who create new account numbers for those decades old bills and continue screwing up the Credit Ratings for hundreds of thousands of North Carolina's Black citizens.

Is this really Racism you ask??

Yes!

For White Patients treated by Carolinas Medical Center staff everything is handled entirely different.

White Patients who visit Carolinas Medical Center for treatment receive proper care regardless of their situation and...

They aren't intentionally overcharged, neither are their Credit Reports damaged even if they don't possess Medical Insurance because NOT every White patient has Private Medical Insurance, just like there are many Black patients treated at CMC who DO possess Private Medical Insurance.

I'd say its time for the Federal Gov't including the FTC, to take a look at how Carolina Medical Center intentionally provides inadequate treatment to its Black patients, how they consistently & intentionally overbill Black patients and how they are paying big bucks to 3 major Credit Reporting agencies (mainly Equifax) for the sole purpose of selling Medical Bill Accounts which are decades old to Debt Collectors.

Just watch the Levine Family, old Charlotte money and one of Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System largest contributors, use their big bucks to help defend CMC in any possible lawsuit.

The Levine Family is Charlotte's "Savior".

They often come to Charlotte's aid in a crisis however ONLY after the crisis occurs.

They run Charlotte's so-called Leaders including Jennifer Roberts and Anthony Foxx.

The Levines are most likely indirectly involved in most of Charlotte's Racist activities being carried out however, because they are super rich everyone is afraid of them.

If Ken Chapman were a White Man residing in Charlotte, NC neither he nor his family members would be dead today.

Or at least his family members would be alive today.

Both Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System, Charlotte DSS and quite possibly the Levine Family are ALL legally Responsible for the Chapman Family's death stemming from total NEGLIGENCE.

If I were related to Mr. Chapman's family I would most definitely SUE and demand a Federal Probe to be conducted.

Sadly enough Kenneth Jermaine Chapman's relatives are probably uneducated or too afraid of Charlotte's Racist, Unfair systems to take legal action.

Charlotte's Racist, Scared Leaders know this which is why nothing will probably change.






Patient Advocates: N.C.'s Mental Health System Needs Fixing


Recent reports of patient abuse and neglect at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro is more proof that the state's troubled mental health-care system needs restructuring and more funding, patient advocates say.

"There isn't a system of psychiatric facilities in this state," said Vicki Smith, executive director of Disability Rights North Carolina. "What we have are individual hospitals."

Smith said there needs to be a consistent standard level of care across the state's four psychiatric hospitals and that right now, hospitals only try to meet the minimum standards of care to receive funding.

She blamed that on job vacancies, lack of training, lack of supervision and oversight and inadequate pay. Many state agencies also rely on a temporary work force, and that means the quality of patient care is not always the same, she said.

Better recruiting and retention are needed, she said, to attract more qualified and attractive job candidates.

It's something the state's mental health oversight committee also suggested at a meeting earlier this week. John Tote, with the Mental Health Association in North Carolina, says the General Assembly needs to make more funding available.

Advocates believe Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton has taken aggressive steps to overhaul the system since taking over last year.

For example, he's starting to hold workers more accountable, Smith said. His recent decision to close a ward at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro in the wake of a patient's death sends a big message, she said, partly because there aren't enough beds for patients there.

On Thursday, Benton said the Division of Mental Health must find an independent hospital management firm to evaluate Cherry Hospital.

However, Smith and Tote are concerned that any progress Benton is making could suffer a setback when a new governor is elected in November and if a new DHHS secretary is appointed.

"Four months left scares me," Smith said. "What concerns me is that with a new administration, the tendency will be to study the problems."

That would not be true if the gubernatorial candidates are already investigating and discussing the problems the mental health system faces. Advocates say they have not heard any specific plans from either candidate so far, however.

"Folks are going to be behind the eight ball, and if that's the case we'll see a perpetuation of the situation," Tote said.



North Carolina Mental-Hospital Workers To Be Re-trained After Patient Abuse Claim


The Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says workers at a troubled state mental hospital will be retrained following an allegation of abuse that went unreported for several days.

"The patient was not harmed. The issue was that they handled it improperly, so we're going to make sure that we're restructuring a whole bunch of training at Cherry Hospital," Lanier Cansler said Thursday. "It really gave us a clue to the fact that they thought they were doing it right."

The intensive training will be for everyone who works at the Goldsboro facility and involve a list of prohibited actions that result in immediate termination, Cansler said.

Cherry Hospital is in jeopardy of losing approximately $800,000 in federal funding following the incident last month in which a mental health technician dragged a 22-year-old male patient and covered his face with a pillow to keep him from spitting while staff tried to restrain him.

Among the findings in a report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the hospital "failed to provide care in a safe setting by failing to investigate the allegation of patient abuse in a timely manner" by allowing the same staff member to continue caring for the patient for 19 days after the allegation was reported.

Cansler told members of the Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Joint Legislative Oversight Committee Thursday morning that the incident went unreported for so long, not because staff tried to hide it but because they didn't know they did anything wrong.

No one will lose their job over the case, Cansler said, despite a zero-tolerance policy he put in place soon after taking over the department in 2008.

"I will not hold an employee responsible for doing something improperly if they've never been trained to do it right," he said. "That's our responsibility, and we're going to make sure it happens."

DHHS must now submit a plan of correction detailing the new training by May 21 to CMS, which oversees the federal insurance plans and reimburses hospitals for treating patients under the programs.

The federal agency revoked Cherry Hospital's certification in 2008, when a 50-year-old patient died after staff left him sitting unattended in a chair for nearly 24 hours. The hospital lost an estimated $8 million to $10 million in federal funding as a result.

Three employees were ultimately fired, two resigned and 10 others were disciplined in that incident. Several former employees were also charged with and convicted of physically and sexually assaulting patients in other cases.

Mental health advocates and state officials have blamed a lack of training and inadequate pay as contributing factors to the problems the hospital has faced.

Canser said Gov. Bev Perdue's proposed budget for the next fiscal year provides $500,000 for additional training at state facilities. A federal match would bring the total to around $800,000.


View Larger Map


Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WCNC, WRAL, Google Maps

Charlotte's Affordable Housing Debate vs. NC Senate Bill 810 (Videos)

(N.C. Senate Bill 810) N.C. State Law Prevents Charlotte City Officials From Denying Public Housing In Ballantyne


N.C. State law says some neighbors' concerns about a proposed Affordable Housing project in Ballantyne doesn't matter when it comes to voting for approval or denial.

N.C. Senate Bill 810 was signed into Law by Gov. Bev Perdue last fall.

The new Legislation says a development can't be denied simply because it contains Affordable Housing.

It means meetings like one held past Monday at Harrison United Methodist Church are good for airing concerns -- and that's about it.

Warren Cooksey represents the Balllantyne area on the Charlotte City Council.

He listens to his constituents, but says his hands are tied on the vote, thanks to the New Law.

"We run the risk from either side, depending upon what the vote is of Legal Action, saying you didn't do this right," said Cooksey.

Warren Cooksey says the evaluation whether it's an appropriate land use is the issue, not the impact on neighboring property values and not potential concerns about crime.

Police say some of the most crime-ridden areas in Charlotte are Affordable Housing neighborhoods.

At Ballantyne Crossing, about one-third of the 86 units are proposed low-income.

"If crime is perceived to be a shorthand for a perception of Affordable Housing, we are prohibited from Discriminating against Affordable Housing in a land use decision," Cooksey said.

To ease neighbors' concerns, the city says they can request conditions to the agreement, like requesting improved roads, sidewalks, green space and lighting.

People who are in favor of the Ballantyne Crossing complex say there's a need for Affordable Housing for people who work in Ballantyne, who want to live there as well.





Hundreds Of Charlotte Citizens Turn Out Against Ballantyne Affordable Housing Project


The meeting started inside while people were still lining up outside. Hundreds showed up to hear more about a proposed public housing complex in the Ballantyne area. One by one, they fired questions and comments at the developers, Republic Development Group:

"What experience do you have creating something like this?"

"Can you not find a more suitable place than what is the southern gateway to our community?"

"Where I'm coming from is I don't want it here.

My house is over one million dollars and I don't want the crap next to me."

The project took a hit Monday afternoon when the Charlotte Housing Authority issued a statement that it would not participate in the mixed income housing development.

"Questions about certain aspects of the project's structure, including its Density (the total number of apartment units relative to the cost of the land) and funding, prompted our decision," said Jennifer Gallman with the Charlotte Housing Authority.

"We keep going," said Stuart Proffitt of Republic Development.

Proffitt says he still hopes to build the 86 unit complex with another affordable housing developer. A representative from the Crosland Company told News Channel 36 the developer has asked if Crosland would manage the property if it were approved.

One man, who asked not to be identified, said he believed this was a case of "not in my backyard." "I live on the West side and this will be pushed to some other part of town," he said.

But opponents say that's not the case. They point to the fact that the proposed site, south of Ballantyne, off of Johnston Road, has no easy access to public sidewalks, little public transportation and already overcrowded schools.

Cynthia Jennings lives in the Ballantyne area. "People who live in low income housing want the same thing we all do. A nice place to live for their families. But the way the developer came in, through the back door, was sneaky and shady," she said.







Southwest Charlotte Neighbors Move To Block Low-Income Apartments


A proposal to build 90 apartments for working class families is drawing criticism and resentment from homeowners who would live near the development.

More than 4.5 acres of land near the northeast corner of Westinghouse Boulevard and South Tryon was purchased for the rental homes last December.

About 200 residents of the Ayrsley community filled a meeting room Tuesday evening for what the project's developer called a "courtesy meeting".

Several of the homeowners carried signs which read "Save Ayrsley" and "No Low Income Housing"

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership, a non-profit agency, would build the two and three-bedroom apartments for families who make less than $32,000 per year.

"We don't have people who are just goofing off," said Patricia Garrett, the agency's president. "They have jobs. They go to school."

Garrett said neighbors are often misinformed about affordable housing communities. She said her managers often screen prospective tenants more thoroughly than at other, privately-run apartments.

Still, some Ayrsley homeowners told NewsChannel 36 they are concerned about the potential impact of more rental units in a community with an abundance of vacant apartments and town homes for lease.

"Build more when you have vacancies all over? "It doesn't make sense," said homeowner Monica Ainslie.

Because another 52-unit apartment community for low-income families, Summerfield, is less than a half-mile from the proposed site, developers must ask Charlotte's city council for permission to build the new apartments. The city's development rules are designed to prevent a heavy concentration of subsidized housing in one neighborhood.

"Nobody here is opposed to Subsidized Housing," Ayrsley homeowner Lauren Widrick told NewsChannel 36. "It's the violation of city council's policy in regard to clustering subsidized housing."

Garrett said her agency believes an additional 90-unit apartment community is not unreasonable for the area and is needed to provide housing for families who cannot afford to lease a home at the market rate.

Vacant apartments in Ayrsley are not eligible for the federal and state tax credits which would pay for most of the $10 million project, she said.

Council is expected to vote on the apartment community next month. An exact date has not been set.

Charlotte City leaders will also be asked to approve $1 million from the city's Housing Trust Fund for the development.

Council member David Howard is a vice-president with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership and part of the development team for the proposed apartments. He said Tuesday he will recuse himself from council's decision.


View Larger Map


Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, North Carolina General Assembly, WCNC, Google Maps

Harvey Gantt & Charlotte Center City Partners Intentionally Plan To Ignore Black Communities..."2020 Vision"

Notice how this new "2020 Vision Plan" drafted by the Charlotte Center City Partners doesn't include Southwest Charlotte, East Charlotte, Northeast Charlotte, West Charlotte and Northwest Charlotte.

Those areas listed above are Charlotte's Forgotten, badly Neglected Corridors, where a large percentage of Charlotte's Middle Class and Low Income citizens reside.

Harvey Gantt (Charlotte's first Black Mayor) has long expressed and shown an disdain towards Middle and Lower Income citizens. Especially Minority citizens on those Socio-economic levels.

("Let's face it, the reality is the poorest of the poor are not the most outstanding political constituency to appeal to,” said architect Harvey Gantt, who was mayor 1983-1987. “So there have to be people who care about that problem at some political risk." Harvey Gantt...May 2009 (Charlotte Observer)

I've also heard that Warren Turner is in on this little scheme too.

How do I know this to be true?

City Councilman Warren Turner doesn't DO ANYTHING for Southwest Charlotte (Nations Ford Road, Arrowood Road). No Political Representation, No Economic Development, No Nothing!

Those streets are also included in his District but he intentionally doesn't do anything to represent the people who reside in those areas. Not even Homeowners!

Its a shame neither Gantt nor Turner remembers where God has bought them from.

Now do most of you who read my blog understand why I rarely support Charlotte's Black Leaders??

Please don't get me wrong on this one.

I'm all for supporting Black Leaders, however Charlotte's Black Leaders seem to be from a different breed of Leaders.

The only time Charlotte's Black Leaders even allow themselves to mingle with Middle and Low Income Black citizens is when they are running for Re-Election to Public Office. That's It!

Most of them are Extremely Corrupt, Unusually Self-Centered and Notorious for stepping on other Black citizens. Especially Middle and Low Income Black citizens.

It must be something in the water.

I'll continue to support Black Leaders, just not Charlotte's Black Leaders.

In essence what people like Harvey Gantt and Warren Turner are doing is basically punishing "certain" Charlotte Constituents, especially Minority Citizens just because they aren't Wealthy or don't possess a bunch of College Degrees.

Many of those citizens are hardworking individuals.

Yet such Constituents are the ones whom Charlotte Gov't Leaders frequently vote to jack up their Property Taxes, increase Water Bill rates, provide Poor Public Safety and poor Performing Public Schools.

The article below further proves Charlotte Leaders are intentionally planning to continue ignoring Charlotte's forgotten Corridors.

However I along with other concerned citizens are contacting the Federal Gov't on this issue.

Why?

Charlotte Leaders have a long history of submitting proposals to the Federal Gov't under the guise of obtaining Funds for the purpose of Revitalizing Charlotte's Economically Distressed communities.

Then after receiving those funds, they spend the money Uptown or in Charlotte's Wealthy South Charlotte communities. (Not Southwest; South Charlotte)

Intentionally ignoring these areas: Southwest Charlotte (including Nations Ford & Arrowood Roads), East Charlotte, Northeast Charlotte, West Charlotte and Northwest Charlotte for the 2010 Census Count (also part of their corrupt plan) and Neighborhood Revitalization is a Civil Rights Violation.

Perhaps Charlotte's Black Leaders think that its impossible to prove Discrimination if the perpetrator is a Minority too. Wrong!

If Charlotte Leaders choose to continue ignoring Southwest Charlotte, East Charlotte, Northeast Charlotte, West Charlotte and Northwest Charlotte, fine but they won't use Federal Dollars to carry out their little devious, divisive plan.




How will Center City look in 2020?

Several hundred Charlotteans gathered Wednesday evening at a community workshop to propose their visions for what central Charlotte should look like in the year 2020.

The questions they raised included whether Charlotte can attract more retailers to the city's center, build up public transit and connect uptown to surrounding neighborhoods, and still maintain its quality of life and low cost of living.

The Center City 2020 Vision Plan is an attempt to lay out development in uptown and 16 nearby neighborhoods, including Dilworth, Optimist Park and Wesley Heights.

Charlotte Center City Partners, the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are putting up a total of $750,000 to finance the project.

A California firm, MIG Inc., has been hired to help with the design. MIG has worked on downtown plans for cities including Los Angeles, Dallas and Denver.

Charlotte Observer Publisher Ann Caulkins and former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt chair the steering committee.

At Wednesday's forum in the Charlotte Convention Center, attendees put sticky notes on "vision stations" completing statements such as, "Dear Charlotte, My most memorable experience in Center City was...."

A trio of caricature artists also drew people in front of their favorite Charlotte spots before attendees took turns sharing their visions.

Most agreed the city needs to draw more street-level retail and mixed-use projects to uptown, as well as create more public transportation options, such as a streetcar and more light rail.

Some people also said Charlotte needs more pedestrians.

"I live here because I can walk to work, but there are so few people walking," said Kristin Hodge, who moved to Charlotte from Arlington, Va., four months ago to work for Bank of America. "That's a social connection I'm missing here."

Little discussed was the economic climate, which has created lingering questions about Charlotte's future as a banking center and about commercial and residential projects that have been delayed or scrapped.

Some people also expressed amazement at how much the city has already grown.

Said Linda Drum, who moved to Charlotte from Toronto 15 years ago: "When I first moved here, you could shoot a cannon down Trade Street and not hit anyone."





City's effort falls short for Poorest

Seven years ago, Charlotte launched what would become its largest housing program, asking voters to pay the first $20 million of a now unprecedented $67 million in bonds for affordable housing.

It was a new strategy. The city would expand its stock of housing for low- and moderate-income families by offering developers grants and loans to include affordable homes and apartments in their projects.

Up sprang Tyvola Crossing, Mayfield Terrace and other mixed-income developments. In the seven years since the first bonds passed, the city says, its Housing Trust Fund has financed the construction or rehabilitation of 3,639 homes.

But 45 percent of those units are not aimed at the poorest families despite a severe shortage of housing. Instead, the money went to moderate-income housing, where a surplus now exists.

Despite some successes, most of the new homes are out of reach for the city's neediest: families making less than $20,000 a year. They often spend too much of their income on housing. Some end up homeless.

That's inexcusable for Charlotte, said developer John Crosland.

“We have funded a lot of good things, major things: the basketball arena, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, the football stadium, the museums,” said Crosland, who was founding chair of Habitat for Humanity of Charlotte. “They're wonderful things. But it's high time we try to do something about the people who are really struggling to find an affordable place.”

From the start of the bonds in 2002, the council agreed to give preference to projects serving the very poor. Over half the units aided by the Housing Trust Fund were designed to serve that population, the city says, including new and rehabbed housing. But of the new housing, only one in three units are affordable to the very poor.

“We have not come up with any sound policy around affordable housing,” said City Council member Michael Barnes. “There are people who are in a position where they cannot pay anything for housing. The models that we have created do not meet that need.”

Charlotte has a surplus of housing in the higher price ranges where much of the Trust Fund money has gone, a city-commissioned study showed. But the city is short about 15,000 units that rent for $499 a month or less, the study showed. In three years that's expected to approach 17,000.

Beyond money, many leaders agree, Charlotte needs a citywide commitment to house the poor.

“Let's face it, the reality is the poorest of the poor are not the most outstanding political constituency to appeal to,” said architect Harvey Gantt, who was mayor 1983-1987. “So there have to be people who care about that problem at some political risk.”

Both mayoral candidates have vowed action.

“I asked to be on the (City Council's) housing committee because I could not make sense of what we were doing,” said Republican candidate John Lassiter. “We had a series of policies that are reacting to whatever council's perspective is at the time…. Somebody has got to get their arms around the big picture. Look at where the gaps are.”

Anthony Foxx, the Democratic candidate, said Charlotte can do better. “Given the scope of the need, are we putting as much of a dent in the need as we need to? Absolutely not.”

Housing Trust Fund

Bonds for affordable housing had been used by every other major city in North Carolina for years. But, until 2002, not in Charlotte.

Bert Green, director of the city's Habitat for Humanity, organized a group to lobby for a referendum. The bonds, he hoped, would help low- and moderate-income families, including the homeless – and also policemen, teachers and others with jobs who nevertheless can't afford Charlotte's high housing costs. In 2000, a city-appointed committee reported 31 percent of all Mecklenburg households struggled to find or pay for housing.

Some feared a lack of affordable housing would slow Charlotte's population and economic growth if low-wage workers moved to outlying communities where housing costs were lower.

Voters passed the first $20million request and subsequent bonds in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

Developers get money in exchange for a promise to set aside homes for low- to moderate-income families. Developers usually get most of their funding from other government or private sources, and the city gives them “gap financing.” Developers get extra “points” in the application process for meeting certain criteria, including serving the very poor and being close to transit.

City administrators make recommendations on projects. The City Council reviews the projects and votes on whether to provide funding.

Stanley Watkins helps oversee affordable housing programs. His office processes applications for trust fund money and works with the trust fund board.

Watkins recently announced his retirement, which came weeks after the city combined his department with another area and named a new director. He had faced scrutiny over how well he monitored a separate city housing program.

So where has the $67 million gone?

$53.9 million has been committed. Of that, $34 million in projects has been completed.

More than $10 million went to rehabilitate existing housing and $24 million toward new housing.

Of 1,233 new units, 403 are affordable to a family of four making under $19,320 a year. The city uses that benchmark because it is 30 percent of the area's median family income – a commonly used measure of poverty.

Much of the new housing is affordable to families making more than that, up to $51,520 a year.

Karen Montaperto of Charlotte Emergency Housing said in her 12 years as executive director, only one of the agency's clients has been able to move into a home subsidized by the trust fund.

“The rents,” she said, “are too high for our people.”

City officials acknowledge difficulty in providing housing for the very poor, but say they are not to blame for the situation. Overall, they say, they have made good use of money from the trust fund.

In a prepared statement, the city said: “The need for affordable housing overwhelms the available funding resources to build and rehabilitate resources. City funding has helped, but it is not sufficient to solve the problem nor is the problem the City's alone to solve.”

Council member James Mitchell said few developers are willing to build homes for the very poor.

“This is driven by economics,” Mitchell said. “A lot of developers don't have a passion for community good will. They would rather build a $2 million place than one for $55,000.”

Council member Nancy Carter said: “It's tragic, and I don't know what to do about it.” With cuts in federal money for housing and few developers willing to build homes for the poorest families, she said, the city is in a predicament.

Difficult goals

The council set goals that wouldn't be easy to accomplish.

On the one hand, members wanted to give priority to projects serving the very poor. On the other, they wanted to leverage the public's money by ensuring that for every $1 in bond money, developers invested $5 in other government or private money.

If too many tenants are at the low end, officials say, the projects are not financially viable for developers. To include more units for the very poor, they said, the city would need to give developers bigger subsidies.

“The goal is to provide safe, decent housing to as many people as we can,” said Tylee Kessler, co-chair of the Housing Trust Fund board. “It takes a lot more resources, time and money to fund housing for the people who really need it now… the people who make the least.”

In northwest Charlotte, the city paid $2.8 million toward a $16million apartment complex of 192 units. Called Rivermere, the complex resembles a typical, well-manicured suburban setting. It is a mixed income community, offering some apartments at market rate and others at reduced rent because of the city's contribution to the construction cost.

The city considers 100 of the apartments affordable for lower-income residents. Of those, 20 are set aside for families who make $19,320 or less. The other 80 are intended for families who earn up to $38,640 a year. The remaining 92 units have no rent restrictions.

Mixed-income complexes have replaced the old system of concentrating the poor in large, public housing complexes in Charlotte. Cities across the United States have adopted the same strategy as better for communities, both financially and socially.

“Our philosophy is that we are not going to concentrate the poor. It doesn't work,” said David Howard, vice president of special projects and community affairs for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing Partnership, the nonprofit developer behind the complex.

Search for Solutions

Advocates for the homeless say the new mixed-income projects failed to provide enough housing for the very poor.

“We think the money could have been better spent,” said Chris Wolf, director of A Way Home, a group that combats homelessness. “The city has not found a way to get the amount of affordable housing we need for the dollars that were spent.”

Possible solutions, officials and advocates say, include rental subsidies for the poor, zoning changes and building affordable projects on public land around new schools, which would allow low-wage workers and families to live close by.

Over the years, some council members questioned whether bond money should be redirected, but the council continued to spend money in the same pattern.

Mayor Pro Tem Burgess said the council told the Housing Trust Fund board last year to find a way to deliver more help through bonds to the most needy. The board, which advises the city on how to create affordable housing, changed the scoring process for applications so builders whose projects serve the very poor will be viewed more favorably.

City administrators are now reviewing applications for $10million in bond money voters approved in November, and the council is expected to award projects in June. Of the total, $3 million will go to target specific groups, such as the elderly and the homeless.

Losing Ground

A study by developer Crosland found that Charlotte lost 1,125 units for the poorest families from 2001 to 2007. He found at least 3,201 affordable units were demolished, while only 2,076 new affordable units were built to take their place.

One example of how that can happen is a city-subsidized project north of the Interstate 277 loop outside uptown. Taxpayers are providing around $25million in grants and loans to help the Housing Partnership demolish the Double Oaks apartment complex and build 940 new condominiums, townhomes, apartments and single-family houses. Some $5million will come from the Housing Trust Fund.

Double Oaks apartments, which dated from 1949, was a sprawling neighborhood of one-story structures with 576 apartments. Crime was rampant and the units rundown, but the rents were within reach of day laborers, housekeepers and other low-wage workers who paid landlords between $300 and $450 a month.

The Housing Partnership helped former tenants find new homes and is providing 31/2 years of rental assistance.

Once the new development is built it will include 300 affordable units, but only 75 will be in the old, lower price range. Rents for the rest of the low-income units will range from $550 to $700.

City officials said they support the Double Oaks redevelopment because it will raise the quality of life in the Statesville Road area, bolster the tax base and attract new business to an area sorely lacking in private investment.

The Salvation Army homeless shelter for women and children sits down the street from Double Oaks. Workers used to refer clients to the apartments because low rents made it one of the few places they could afford.

Deronda Metz, the agency's social services director, said women who had suffered abuse, lost their jobs or faced other problems could get a new start there.

“We just lost some of the last affordable housing,” Metz said. “I see the situation getting worse.”



View Larger Map


Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Charlotte Biz Journals, Charmeck.org, Charlotte Center City Partners, Recovery.gov, Hud.gov, CBO.gov, NCSpin, Clemson.edu, SoulofAmerica, Google Maps

ACORN As We Once Knew It Is Gone...A Rebound Seems Impossible

(Here is video of ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis appearing on Fox News Sunday recently where she was questioned by Chris Wallace. GOP Rep. Darrell Issa also appeared on the show.)




(ACORN Prostitution Investigation)




(ACORN's ties with the American Federated of Teachers Union.)







Acorn’s Woes Strain Its Ties to Democrats

Last December, in one of his last acts as New York City’s top urban development official — and just days before President Obama nominated him as the federal housing secretary — Shaun Donovan attended a groundbreaking ceremony in the South Bronx.

A complex of 125 apartments had fallen into such disrepair that Bush administration housing officials had foreclosed on the building and transferred it to a group they and Mr. Donovan had come to trust: the New York Acorn Housing Company.

“These renovations will transform this once-troubled property into a remarkable asset,” Mr. Donovan declared in a city news release trumpeting the apartments’ “rescue” by Acorn and its development partners.

Now in Mr. Obama’s cabinet, Mr. Donovan is unwilling to speak publicly about that project or any other work with Acorn, a group with which he at times worked particularly closely during his five years as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s housing development commissioner but whose missteps have allowed conservatives to cast it as a symbol of liberalism run amok.

Congress is pushing legislation ordering Mr. Donovan to cut off all Acorn-related grants, something he has declined to address. And he is staying clear of the organization’s leaders.

“I can’t get near him,” said Bertha Lewis, the Acorn chief executive, who frequently interacted with Mr. Donovan as Acorn’s New York leader until 2008.

The arc of Mr. Donovan’s relationship with Acorn traces the broader trajectory of its affiliation with the Democratic Party, exhibiting how deeply the group has been enmeshed in urban politics in New York and other large cities and how members of the Obama administration have been put on the defensive over past relationships with the group.

The relationship between Democrats and Acorn has always been as productive as it has been uneasy. In Acorn’s 40-year history, its voter registration drives and policy proposals on behalf of mostly poor and minority constituents have often redounded to the benefit of Democratic politicians and policy makers.

But its hot rhetoric, frequently heavy-handed approach and occasional legal stumbles have just as often proved an alienating liability easily exploited by Republicans.

That is especially the case now, with the presentation of videotapes in which conservative advocates posing as a pimp and a prostitute elicited advice on tax evasion at Acorn-affiliated offices — including one in New York — bringing a new round of recriminations and investigations. Many of Acorn’s onetime Democratic allies, including Mr. Obama, appear to have fled its side.

In publicizing Acorn’s foibles, conservative radio and cable television hosts frequently mention Mr. Obama’s previous interactions with its affiliates in Illinois, including a 1995 ballot-access lawsuit where he represented the group alongside the Justice Department. Mr. Obama’s campaign also hired an Acorn-affiliated get-out-the-vote subsidiary last year.

Yet the Obama administration’s closest contacts with Acorn come by way of New York.

Patrick Gaspard, the White House political director, worked with Acorn in New York to set up the Working Families political party and sat on the party’s board with Ms. Lewis when he was the top strategist for its ally, 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her campaigns for the Senate, and the White House urban policy czar, Adolfo Carrión Jr., formerly the Bronx borough president, ran on the party’s ballot lines.

Perhaps no administration official has had more interaction with Acorn than Mr. Donovan, Mr. Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development.

“We grew to respect him, and he grew to respect us,” Ms. Lewis said in an interview.

Mr. Donovan’s work with Acorn’s New York housing arm, glimpsed through two dozen interviews and a review of city documents, was by most accounts mutually beneficial, and showed a side of the group at variance with depictions of it by opponents as a “criminal enterprise.”

Even Bush administration HUD officials came to view some Acorn divisions as credible, awarding more than $40 million to national affiliates.

But throughout, there were hints of the side of Acorn that has made it politically toxic, “a less tightly run ship” — in the words of one city official — that engendered the same sort of suspicion and resentment dogging it now.

By the time Mr. Donovan joined the Bloomberg administration in 2004, Acorn’s housing wing was a well-established partner with the city in rehabilitating its affordable housing stock.

Under its leader, Ismene Speliotis, New York Acorn Housing Company Inc. developed an expertise that even officials in the Republican administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani — no fan of the group — grew to respect during the 1990s.

“These affordable-housing deals get really complicated, and you need a partner with a certain level of financial sophistication,” said Jerilyn Perine, a commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development under Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Bloomberg. “Ismene’s one of the best people for that.”

Mr. Donovan included Ms. Speliotis in a group of affordable housing specialists with whom he consulted frequently, current and former city officials said.

They worked closely to keep Starrett City in Brooklyn the nation’s largest federally supported middle-class housing complex when it went up for sale last year.

And she and Ms. Lewis appeared to help Mr. Donovan deliver a coup for Mr. Bloomberg in 2005 when Acorn endorsed a huge Brooklyn development he was supporting in the face of local opposition.

Acorn backed the plan in return for an unusual promise from the developer, Forest City Ratner, to make half of the 4,500 rental apartments that it was proposing — along with a new Nets basketball arena — available to poor and middle-class families at below-market rates.

The city’s agreement to help finance the plan, hammered out among Mr. Donovan, Ms. Speliotis and others, was hailed as a breakthrough for subsidizing a substantial amount of housing for an unusually broad range of middle-class tenants.

Ms. Lewis — a supporter of Mr. Bloomberg’s challenger that election year, Fernando Ferrer — celebrated by exuberantly kissing the mayor at a public ceremony.

The project’s opponents accused Acorn of selling out. (More recently, Forest City Ratner — a development partner with The New York Times on its new Manhattan headquarters — complied with Acorn’s plea for $1.5 million in grants and loans to help it restructure after an internal embezzlement scandal involving Dale Rathke, the brother of its founder, Wade Rathke.)

Friends said it was not the only time when Mr. Donovan felt as if Acorn had forced itself into an outsize role in development negotiations because of political power derived in part through its Working Families Party; the party was affiliated with many officials the developer was wooing.

“One difference with Acorn was their strong political connections to the influential Working Families Party,” said Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor of public policy at New York University who is friendly with Mr. Donovan and served on the presidential transition team that selected him. “That sometimes helped in creating affordable housing, and sometimes made negotiations more difficult.”

Soon after Mr. Donovan left for Washington, a city-supported nonprofit he helped the mayor and the City Council start to stave off home foreclosures suspended a grant to Acorn’s mortgage counseling center based in Brooklyn because of incomplete record keeping.

It would become the least of the Brooklyn office’s troubles after the conservative filmmakers posing as a pimp and a prostitute — James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles — elicited advice from two of its counselors on how to secure a mortgage for a brothel.

Acorn fired the counselors and is reviewing its supervisory structure; the counselors reported to Acorn Housing’s national branch in Chicago, but fell under the supervision of Ms. Speliotis, in spite of her primary focus on development issues.

With the Brooklyn district attorney’s office investigating, one longtime Acorn ally, the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, has suspended all of its Council money.

Some friends, like Councilman Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, called on Mr. Donovan to speak out. “It’s time for people to say, ‘Wait a minute, Acorn has played a crucial role here,’ ” he said.

Ms. Lewis said she had no such expectations.




ACORN activists mobilize after video scandal

Armed with little more than pen and pad, ACORN organizer David Mazariegos hits inner-city streets to save his embattled employer rather than his usual mission of saving homes from foreclosure.

Mazariegos approaches Jose and Maria Rodriguez on their patio surrounded by overflowing potted plants and a Virgin of Guadelupe statue and asks if they would speak at a news conference about how ACORN saved their house.

Maria Rodriguez doesn't hesitate.

"The only people who helped us were ACORN. We tried to negotiate with the bank, but they wouldn't listen," she says. "We paid $5,000 to a company to help us fix the loan. They took the money and didn't do anything."

As the nonprofit strives to survive the worst scandal in its 39-year history — videotapes of staffers counseling a faux pimp and prostitute how to run a brothel — the organization is doing what it does best: mobilizing low-income people. In this case, the goal is to restore the organization's credibility.

Rallying to the organization's defense

The mobilization effort is unfolding on several fronts. People like Rodriguez are being asked to speak up about how ACORN saved them. She and her husband also agreed to work a phone bank and bring five new people to the next community meeting. And ACORN officials say people are donating more money as they rally to the organization's defense.

"The truth is it broke my heart," Mazariegos said of the scandal. "But it doesn't faze me. It was just a couple people who did this, not the organization."

ACORN activists across the country say being the voice for the voiceless is the real story of their organization. That's why they refuse to buckle to what they see as right-wing detractors trying to bring down the group because it teaches poor people to stand up for themselves.

Their work continues, whether its stopping bulldozing of flooded homes in New Orleans, building housing for the working poor in New York City or protesting teacher layoffs in Los Angeles.

"Most of us have the understanding that we can't not do what we do," said Tanya Harris, the New Orleans chief organizer who was featured in Spike Lee's 2006 Katrina documentary "When the Levees Broke." "If we're taken out of the equation, what is to happen to those people? Who steps in there and fills that void in the way we've done? How are they heard?"

Fallout from the videotape scandal has been harsh. ACORN lost millions of dollars in federal funding and associations with institutions such as Bank of America and the U.S. Census Bureau. Several states, including California and Louisiana, are investigating the group's operations.

Charges of voter-registration fraud

In recent years, it has also weathered charges of voter-registration fraud and a $948,000 embezzlement by the founder's brother. But the widely broadcast videotapes, recorded on hidden camera, have damaged the organization's credibility, perhaps irreparably.

The scandal has shaken the group. ACORN has suspended its tax preparation service and housing assistance program. Foreclosure clients are now referred to counselors at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Yet the group continues to operate. Staffers are being retrained and procedures reviewed. Activists are working on other types of issues, such as the case of a New York City woman who says she was assaulted by a police officer.

They're also trying to drum up cash. Last week, headquarters sent a fundraising plea to field offices under the title "Will ACORN survive?" in a bid to make up the loss of some $2 million in government money. Most of the nonprofit's $25 million annual budget, however, comes from the 500,000 active members. They're asked to give $10 a month, but not all pay dues regularly.

People are responding, said Brian Kettenring, deputy director of national operations. He reported a huge outpouring of online donations, but said the dollar amount was not yet available.

In New Orleans, a woman walked into the ACORN office and donated a $100 bill, said Beth Butler, executive director of that city's chapter.

Community feels indebted to ACORN

Lower Ninth Ward resident Isaac Ray said the community feels indebted to ACORN for saving their neighborhood from a plan to turn it into wetlands.

"The city basically wanted to make this area green space and ACORN was the organization that stepped up and said, 'No bulldozing. Hey, people want to come home,'" said the former teacher. "We can bypass all the stuff we hear about ACORN because we know what ACORN has done for us as a community."

At the nonprofit's Brooklyn office, the waiting room is crammed with winners of a lottery for units in an ACORN-developed affordable housing complex in New York.

But it's far from business as usual in the office where two colleagues were fired for their infamous roles advising the impostor pimp and prostitute about evading taxes and smuggling in underage girls from El Salvador.

"It's frustrating when you work this hard," said Ismene Speliotis, executive director of NY ACORN Housing Co. Inc. "For one incident, your whole world goes topsy-turvy. It's really painful."

Nevertheless, the scandal has sparked a renewed sense of mission and more determination than ever, said lead organizer Jonathan Westin.

"The work we do is too important for this to stop," he said. "We will do whatever it takes to right the ship."

In Los Angeles, organizer Mazariegos stopped at the Watts home of Millicent Hall, a retired school teacher who said she's not about to retire her red ACORN T-shirt.

Surrounded by portraits of civil-rights heroes in her living room, Hall said her days working alongside Martin Luther King Jr. taught her not to give in to pressure.

"Back then, they were jumping off trucks and throwing rocks at us," the 69-year-old recalled. "It's same thing now, but it's politics. We keep on doing what we're doing and we usually win."



View Larger Map

Sources: NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, Biggovernment.com, ACORN, Youtube, Google Maps