Author: digital

Nonprofit Hospitals Accountability Project Releases Report

After extensive research into nonprofit hospitals the Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, the Nonprofit Accountability Project has released our findings and recommendations in a paper, “Charity for Whom?

Our research indicates that the non-profit tax exemption system enables hospitals to be non-profit in name only, thereby reaping the benefits of tax exemption without sharing these gains with low income families. We argue this is due to the vagueness of relevant laws and leniency of the IRS. 

This paper is the product of cooperation between Local 100 United Labor Unions, the Labor Neighbor Research & Training Center (LNRTC), and ACORN International, plus our tireless team of volunteers.

Non-Profit Hospitals Accountability Project

After extensive research into nonprofit hospitals in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, the Nonprofit Accountability Project has released our findings and recommendations in a paper, “Charity for Whom?

On September 24, we went to hospitals in New Orleans (Ochsner), Little Rock (St. Vincent), and Houston (Methodist) to call attention to the lack of charity care given by these, and many other, large institutions in our communities.

Our research indicates that the non-profit tax exemption system enables hospitals to be non-profit in name only, thereby reaping the benefits of tax exemption without sharing these gains with low income families. We argue this is due to the vagueness of relevant laws and leniency of the IRS. 

This paper is the product of cooperation between Local 100 United Labor Unions, the Labor Neighbor Research & Training Center (LNRTC), and ACORN International, plus our tireless team of volunteers.


View the full data set used for the report below:

Voter Purge Project Update: VPP Featured in WIRED Magazine

WIRED Magazine recently featured the Voter Purge Project, a project of ACORN International in partnership with the Ohio Voter Project and Labor Neighbor, in its September 2020 issue. One IT Guy’s Spreadsheet-Fueled Race to Restore Voting Rights details the work of Voter Purge Project to protect eligible voters against disenfranchisement by monitoring, reporting on, and organizing against wrongful voter purging.

Read the full story here.

Learn more about Voter Purge Project here.

The post-pandemic future: Affordable Internet will become a universal human right

Alejandra Ruiz Vargas, national leadership representative for ACORN Canada, says that internet will become a universal human right in a post-pandemic world.

“People need connectivity for practical reasons, like finding jobs, getting government benefits and doing homework, as well as accessing entertainment and keeping in touch with loved ones,” she writes. “In 2016, the United Nations declared Internet access a human right, but even in Canada, around half of low-income families don’t have access to high-speed Internet at home. Of course, during Covid, this crisis only got worse.”

Read the full article here.

ACORN UK No Evictions! Day of Action

On August 22, 2020, ACORN chapters across the United Kingdom held a No Evictions! Day of Action.

From ACORN UK:

Hundreds of ACORN members took action in 17 towns & cities across England & Wales saying no to rent debt, eviction & homelessness during the pandemic.

Members held socially distanced actions outside of courts where eviction proceedings will be heard, visited the offices of landlords and letting agents to deliver ‘notices of eviction resistance’ to let them know that we won’t stand for immoral COVID evictions, and held outdoor Community Protection Training sessions! ACORN demands that the 1 month eviction ban extension announced last week is followed by serious legislation to protect renters from homelessness and rent debt in the fall out of COVID-19.

We need rent debt accrued as a result of COVID wiped and an immediate end to Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions.Over the last couple of months hundreds of people have attended Community Protection Training sessions meaning whenever evictions restart, ACORN members will be ready to resist them.

Watch the full video >>

Supporting Tenants of Wiseview Montreal

ACORN Quebec was there! In front of the media to defend the tenants of Jean Brillon street tenants against their outbreak problems. Cockroaches, mice, bed bugs. It’s time for this to stop! Today’s action against the company Wiseview Montreal which does nothing against its infected housing has made some noise. Support the movement.

Impacts of the Covid-19 Crisis on ACORN Members Around the World

Global social protection in times of global crisis

We low-income families are living in the popular areas of Douala, Toronto, Mumbai, Paris, Lima, Manchester, Tunis, New Orleans and Edinburg are victims of the health crisis. We lost our job, we lost much of our income. Yet we still have to pay our rent, our electricity bills and buy something to feed our families. As the lockdown comes to an end, we are tens of millions of people to find ourselves in rent debt in France, the UK, the United States or Canada. This is how we are reduced to misery and hunger.

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This Hyderabad singer has started a music revolution in Mumbai’s Dharavi slums. Here’s how

Written by Seema Rajpal June 23rd, 2020 from Edex Live

Hyderabad-based Gomathi Iyer is doing some unforgettable covers on Instagram and before the lockdown, was helping girls in one of the largest slums in the world, Dharavi in Mumbai learn to sing.

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How Asia’s biggest slum contained the coronavirus

Soutik Biswas June 23rd, 2020 from BBC News

In one of the world’s most congested shanty towns, social distancing is not a luxury people can afford. And density is a friend of the coronavirus.

Imagine more than 500,000 people spread over 2.5 grubby sq km, less than a square mile. That’s a population larger than Manchester living in an area smaller than Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

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PM SVANidhi: Will it be a non-starter?

by Dharmendra Kumar — June 24, 2020 from Counter Currents

It is said that COVID does not differentiate. Yet, people on the margin have been differently impacted by COVID. Street vendors are one such vulnerable group. With lockdown, streets wore a deserted look. Street livelihood vanished all of a sudden. Street vendors, generally outlawed and operating with meagre capital and various kinds of livelihood insecurities and restrictive and punitive regulatory authorities found it hard to survive through the lockdown.

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