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".
Nairobi After an absence of three or four years where I’ve kept up with ACORN Kenya and its work through Skype and written reports, I was curious how different Nairobi might look when I hit the ground. The line at Customs was no shorter despite a new requirement that visas be obtained via the internet …
Warsaw Wow, mama, how can this be? I’m stuck in Warsaw with the Toronto blues again! I had noticed there was a readership spike on my blog on Saturday. A Saturday is not a big day for blog readers, friends, and as vitally important as microfinance and poverty is, it was hard for me to …
New Orleans Payday lenders are weeds that crack the sidewalk. Payday lenders are “broken window” signposts advertising lower income neighborhoods and tending to push communities and families over the edge. There may not be an area in North America that has been more effective in using city zoning policies to aggressively root out payday lenders …