ACORN is working to make affordable housing available so people in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods can be homeowners. ACORN members demand more rehabilitation programs aimed at developing affordable housing and increased production of affordable housing.

All children deserve a quality education.  The better their education is the more likely they will be able to enjoy a great quality of life. Parents' hard earned tax dollars are used to finance the public school system so their offspring should reap the benefits.  ACORN members have been working to implement a platform to improve the quality of public schools.

ACORN Fair Housing is a federally funded program through the Office of Housing and Urban Development’s(HUD) Fair Housing Initiatives Program ( FHIP) grant. It is our mission to  prevent and eliminate discriminatory housing practices. ACORN Fair Housing Organization works to ensure equal housing opportunity by providing a variety of services through outreach, education and enforcement.

ACORN Fair Housing, while an independent organization , has it’s beginnings as part of ACORN, a 38 year old community activist organization.

For the last two years ACORN members have been waging a campaign against Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs). RALs are short-term loans with triple-digit interest rates that are marketed extremely aggressively to low-income families. Customers are often charged over $150, on top of the regular tax prep fees, just get to their own tax dollars back a week or so faster than they otherwise would.

ACORN’s campaign has attacked RALs in several ways, such as directly targeting tax preparers to change their practices, conducting door-to-door outreach to warn families about the high costs of RALs, operating VITA sites which offer free tax preparation, and working for legislation on the city, state, and federal level to protect consumers.

Predatory lending has ignited a wildfire of foreclosures across the United States.

Foreclosures don’t just hurt individuals and families, they hurt entire neighborhoods and communities, leaving homes abandoned and vulnerable to vagrancy and crime.

No other organization has fought harder to increase access to credit for low-income and minority families than ACORN, but predatory lending is threatening to reverse the progress we have made. Beginning in the 1980s, ACORN fought against redlining and discrimination and for greater community investment. ACORN Housing was founded to provide free education and counseling to help low-income people become homeowners.

Hurricane Katrina's winds had hardly subsided before ACORN began organizing New Orleaneans to rebuild their beloved city on their own terms. Today, ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans houses more staffers than ever and ACORN members are fighting to ensure the city's recovery. Though thousands of Katrina survivors are still displaced, the last year has seen a series of significant wins for ACORN in New Orleans and the struggle continues to fully resurrect the Crescent City.

Some 45 million people across the U.S. have no health insurance, with many more lacking adequate coverage. ACORN members are working to achieve affordable health care for all. Work is currently underway to get more hospitals to institute “charity care," or free care, programs and discounts. These policies can eliminate or reduce, hospital bills for families with low-and-moderate incomes. They often suffer from being uninsured or underinsured.

The signs displayed in last year’s immigration marches said it so powerfully: We are America.

Immigrants care about their communities, their families and the future of the United States. They hope to achieve the American Dream. Because of their strong desire to become Americans, immigrants in 2006 joined rallies, marches and vigils all across the United States.

ACORN’s 2006 election campaign, "Raise the Minimum Wage," represented unprecedented victory for working families.

May 24, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 348-73 to approve a measure raising the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over the next three years. The Senate approved the increase, giving low-wage workers their first boost in a decade.

Most people believe that U.S. workers have the right to paid sick days, yet according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost half of full-time, private-sector workers have no sick days at all. Government data also shows a national trend toward a reduction in paid sick days.

Workers need about seven sick days each year to manage their own health care. But for almost half of U.S. employees, the absence of sick pay is likely to cause them loss of income, a job or advancement, says the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Predatory lenders target low-income and minority homebuyers, capitalizing on buyers’ lack of understanding of the complicated transactions or use outright deception to close loans that inevitably lead to a loss of equity or foreclosure.

ACORN strives to end abuses by actively putting pressure on predatory lending offenders and advocating for legislation, regulation, education and research to end abusive lending practices.

ACORN won reforms of utilities service practices nationwide in 2006, which helped low-income customers pay their bills and avoid service disruptions.

ACORN is working to impose moratoriums on shutoffs, so that families are not left without heat in winter nor refrigeration in summer. We are negotiating programs to create lower rates and delay payments for low-income families.

ACORN opposes deregulation efforts and works to lessen the impact on consumers when deregulation occurs.

Registering to vote is one of the first steps toward becoming a full participant in American democracy and a citizen who can influence change in a community.  ACORN members and workers go door to door in low- and moderate income neighborhoods, approach people at shopping centers, grocery stores, and libraries, and visit high schools to talk to voting-age seniors because ACORN wants as many people as possible to participate in the democratic process.

ACORN has helped more than 1.68 million citizens to register to vote in past registration drives leading up to the 2004 and 2006 elections.  For the 2008 election, ACORN intends to help 1.2 million people register to vote in 26 states across the country.  We have already reached 177,000 registrations in 2007 and 2008 in what will be the largest, non-partisan voter registration effort in U.S. history.