Introduction
The relations between people and organizations in modern human society have always displayed considerable complexity. Individuals work to provide themselves and their families with material wealth in the society, while the state operates to retrieve the largest profit possible from transactions carried out between it and individuals. Community non-profit organizations are designed, according to the mission statements, to help people in relations with the state and various social and financial organizations. Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is one such organization as far as it deals with advising middle and low-income families in the United States regarding the important issues in voting, mortgage repayment, housing purchases, and tax operations.
Background
According to the official page of ACORN (2009), this organization is defined as “the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in about 75 cities across the country” (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 2009). Based on such a definition, ACORN is set to help people by consulting and organizing services, and this is what ACORN does. The results of the company’s work for the last three decades show over $1.5 billion in benefit ACORN brought to its customers and allowed to purchase houses, about 1.7 billion voters became able to vote through ACORN’s help in proper registering (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 2009).
ACORN Situation Analysis
Pimp and Prostitute Situation
However, the above-discussed advances of ACORN in facilitating community development and assisting middle to low-income families in defending their legal rights and opportunities do not stop ACORN rivals from trying to spoil the company’s image and undermine its strong social position. The scandal developed by Fox News in 2009 is the best illustration of this point (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 2009). The essence of the scandal lied in the fact that ACORN staffers were videotaped by the hidden camera while consulting a pimp and a prostitute on tax and mortgage issues. The major problem was that the pimp and the prostitute were the reporters of Fox News that developed the situation to portray ACORN in a negative context (Garcia, 2009).
What ACORN could do after the video appeared in the Fox News programs was to state its condemnation of the practices pictured, fire the employees involved, and express the doubt about the genuine character of the video and audio in the controversial Fox News material (Malkin, 2009). The official website of ACORN also published the Friends and Allie’s statement in which the company asks all its supporters not to judge all the history of its operations by only one, artificially created, the episode where some of ACORN staffers failed to act properly, stop the consultation, and notify their supervisors about the possible illegal activity (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 2009).
Home Foreclosure, Mortgage Delinquencies, US Home Sales
To prove that the Fox News scandal is rather an exception than a rule for ACORN, the company now suggests looking at some of the main figures reflecting its work in home sales, foreclosures, and mortgage delinquency. For example, in the context of the current mortgage crisis, home foreclosure rates grew drastically between December 2008 and January 2009 (from 270,000 to 360,000 foreclosures), and the work of ACORN was one of the main reasons for these rates to reduce to 332,292 for the nine months of 2009 (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 2009).
In respect of mortgage delinquency, the situation is more difficult. The mortgage crisis was reflected in the sharp increase of delinquency on the merge of 2008 and 2009 (from 6% to 9%), and the fact that for the nine months of 2009 this rate grew only 0.5%, to 9.5% (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, 2009), is a victory of ACORN, the company that manages to advise people on mortgage payments in the way that allows slowing down the delinquency rates growth even in the context of the still-developing mortgage crisis.
Finally, the US home sales rates have been on the steady rise during the year 2009 (from 8% decline to 20% of the increase), and this can also be considered as ACORN’s victory as the company manages to structure its work with its customers in the way that allows the latter to obtain accommodation under acceptable mortgage interest rates, while the house building and real estate companies receive income even in the context when average real estate sales decline.
Conclusions
Thus, it is obvious that the ACORN statements and the actual figures related to the company’s activities prove the importance of ACORN for the development of the US community and the role of middle and low-income families in it. ACORN advises people in tax, mortgage, real estate, voting, and healthcare matters. The figures of the US home sales, mortgage delinquency rates, and home foreclosure rates prove ACORN’s efficiency and the inability of scandals to undermine the company’s image.
Works Cited
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The Official Corporate Web Site. ACORN, 2009. Web.
Garcia, Gilbert. Cisneros Advising ACORN in Crisis. Express News, 2009. Web.
Malkin, Michelle. Document drop: The truth about ACORN’s foreclosure poster child. MMC, 2009. Web.