ACORN - Rhode Island

Submitted by Guest on December 3, 2008 - 10:00pm.

807 Broad Street, Suite 220

Providence

02907

Website:

www.acorn.org

Ownership:

Non-Profit - Not Tax Exempt

Local Grassroots Organizing Group

Organizational Membership:

Individuals

Organization Type:

National Grassroots Organizing Group

Organization Number:

32970

Organization Phone:

(401) 780-0500

Organization Fax:

(401) 780-0826

Detailed Description

Mission,Constituency, Structure:

Rhode Island ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a member-led and -run grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income families. Rhode Island ACORN members have come together to improve their communities and to gain more dignity, respect, and power for lower-income Rhode Island residents. As a part of ACORN, a national organization, we focus on the empowerment of low and moderate-income people through developing democratically run groups that identify and research community-issues and develop campaigns to resolve these issues. Through ACORN, low- and moderate-income people build relationships with other community organizations and disenfranchised people in order to create real and lasting change. Our constituency is low-to-moderate income Rhode Island families. Our membership is currently 60 % Latino, 30 % African American and 10% white. Rhode Island ACORN?s Board consists of the democratically elected chairpersons from each of our neighborhood chapters. Board members must be ACORN members who live in a low- or moderate-income neighborhood in which ACORN has a local chapter. Our Board members also act as leaders in the organization and are at the forefront of all our projects and events.

States Worked in:

RI RHODE ISLAND

Current Organizing Agenda:

Current Organizing Agenda is to improve the quality of education in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods across Rhode Island. Through extensive community outreach, leadership development, and expanding our organizing into West Warwick and East Providence, we will build a statewide coalition that has the ability to affect education policy at the state level. We will also serve over 1,000 families with financial programs such as free tax filing, home ownership, and credit and budget counseling. In the past year, we have had several major victories including the passage of the Home Loan Protection Act which was signed into law by Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri on July 27, 2006. The new law will create consumer safeguards including eliminating incentives for lenders to make predatory loans, developing a rate and fee threshold for high-cost home loans, and providing access to counseling and education for borrowers. Rhode Island ACORN members worked with Senator Juan Pichardo, Senator Frank Ciccone, State Representatives Joe Almeida and John McCauley, the AARP, the Center for Responsible Lending, and the Rhode Island Housing Network to get the bill written, introduced, and passed through both chambers of the Assembly. Last fall Rhode Island ACORN established a commission that held public hearings across the state, where ACORN members testified at the hearings about their damaging experiences with predatory home loans. Rhode Island ACORN members made hundreds of calls to legislators, spoke out at hearings, and went to the state house to show their support of this important legislation.

Issues:

Immigrant Rights

Leadership:

Members Elect Board

Organizing Strategies:

door knocking

Who We Organize:

Low-income

ACORN - Rhode Island

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