WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
New Orleans In Scotland, ACORN’s tenant union chants “The rent is bananas.” Affordable housing is a global issue. Some cities concoct schemes to maintain affordable housing and block second homes and Airbnbs, but most don’t. Few actually break ground for affordable apartment complexes or create equitable zoning rules to allow them. Minnesotans voted …
New Orleans If there is one thing every community organizer worth her salt learns about quickly from the first day they put feet to the street and knuckles to the wood, is what to say – and maybe even do – about vacant lots and abandoned houses. Neighbors always want the lots cleaned …
Marble Falls A couple of years ago in the wake of ACORN’s Homesavers’ Campaign around predatory rent-to-own schemes, I got a call out of the blue from an Illinois-based owner of various apartment buildings, mostly in the southeastern United States. He was calling in a long shot hope for relief from some tenant …