Montreal Listening to one great report after another from office directors in ACORN Canada was exciting, whether they were talking about growth or campaign victories. It was hard to believe that this record-breaking performance was being achieved against the obstacles of the pandemic.
Internally, the new membership numbers were the best in a dozen years. The dues paid by bankdraft was over $40,000 per month with almost 40% of the budget coming from internal sources. Action and meeting turnout, including Zoom events, were almost 10,000 for the year.
Externally, the campaign victories were even more significant because these were cases where the members were fighting and winning for themselves and their communities. Inclusionary zoning won in Toronto. Huge victories on rent and demo-evictions in Hamilton, including against the biggest landlord that we have fought for years. Rent Safe campaigns around landlord licensing leaped forward in Halifax and in our communities in British Columbia. New offices were opened in the west in Calgary and the east in New Brunswick. Internet for All victories were won in Ottawa. I could go on. Judy Duncan, ACORN Canada’s head organizer, at the end of the lengthy Toronto report asked why the big victories in Scarbourgh, home of our oldest group and many of our top leaders weren’t mentioned, and was simply told they didn’t have time or space, because their report was already too long!
All of this got me thinking. ACORN Canada’s huge growth in the pandemic was not a complete surprise. ACORN India shared that success in 2021. ACORN in the United Kingdom has recorded the same surge in the first year of the pandemic. ACORN International’s expansion was stalled, but on other projects like the Voter Purge Project, our work with rural electric cooperatives, hospital pricing, and organizing with Walmart and other large employers, had increased our support dramatically. What’s going on? How with some of our main organizing methods, like door knocking, somewhat curtailed and often on stop-and-go, was this possible?
Reading about the Washington Post might have provided the key to some understanding. Readership on the Post platforms had surged during the Trump years, but was now lagging, as the public’s attention drifted away from the daily crises in Washington and its politics under that administration. Biden may be trying to build back better, but he’s also brought back boring. The pandemic may have dramatically increased support and participation in ACORN, because the pandemic forced many to see the impact on our constituency and memberships and recognized that we were singularly able to respond. Louisiana ACORN’s great leader Debra Campbell made this point dramatically in The Organizer film, talking about finding herself in Houston after Hurricane Katrina and saying she wasn’t that active in ACORN when she was living in New Orleans, but stranded after the storm, “ACORN was there when we needed it.” In the pandemic in one country after another, “ACORN was there when…” people needed it.
Where we weren’t there, the pandemic was crippling for us and others. Our new project building the ACORN Tenants Union in Atlanta during the pandemic over Zoom organizing committee meetings and staff instability had
ACORN Surging During the Pandemic
been lackluster. Our expansion in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Nigeria faces a post-pandemic reset.
The pandemic is a real problem for organizing. Not everything comes up roses, but where we were planted deep and had strong roots and branches, we could flourish and bloom. There are some important lessons here that we need to understand and remember.