MAY 17, 1959 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Ii s y S Proposed (Continued from Preceding Page) Better housing would bring in more Negro professional people, who, he charged, have not been moving to Ann Arbor because they cannot find adequate housing. At- tracting them would benefit the whole city, he said., "I don't see how you can say it'll hurt people in the long run," Mial said. "It would mean the end of the ghetto that the area is." He claimed it would reduce the "control" in the area that is ex- erted through the power of a land- lord and through land contracts, which are much like mortgages held by an individual rather than a financial institution. Urban Renewal would do so, he claims, by "enhancing the dignity of home ownership" and by re- moving the necessity ;or borrow- ers to get the type of approval they now must get. After the leaders in the area are gone, Mial said, "the children will be left, and in my opinion their future should be our primary concern." "Slaughterhouse" . "Yes sir, we want Urban Renew- al, very definitely," Mrs. Emery Gates of 126 E. Summit St. de- clared. "I love my home as well as anybody else. I: have my pride. "How would you like a slaugh- terhouse right next to you if you had a sick person who couldn't get to sleep because of it? People come down here to use their cars for lovers' lane." "And the rats from the junk- yard," her husband added. "You can hardly sleep for skunks." "I want Urban Renewal for the sake of the whole neighborhood," Mrs. Gates said. "I want it for the kids" and for their children. The Gates have lived in their home 14 years, Gates said, but for six years they have held off re- habilitating it until they knew what would happen under Urban Renewal. He said he didn't think their home would be taken away, but really didn't know what would happen. What if it were removed? "If it hurts me, it'll just have to hurt," Gates said. "You've got to hurt so m e b o d y, regardless. There's never been progress made any other way." "For the girds" .. . "It's for the birds, don't let anybody ever kid you," Cliff Gurk of 526 Detroit St. said. "Urban Renewal is good for the big man. There'll be a big land graft." "These are all good sound houses, better than they build today," Gurk went on. "A lot of old people have got their life earnings in their houses." But "they" want Ann Arbor to be perfect, he said. "They figure everybody's rich, and they sit back and rob the taxpayers so much it's a wonder they don't leave town. "The Greeks control the town, as far as money is concerned. It's a University deal, don't kid your- self. The big businessmen want to make some money too." "If it goes through, they'd bet- ter build a couple hundred more rooms in the poorhouse. People are losing what they gained in 30-40 years. People with nothing have got no chance in the world." "If they take my house away," Gurk said, "they'll get me another one. You can't replace what I've got for $25,000" - a house, a ga- rage he added, and a location at which:'he is known to be. In win- ter he sells Christmas trees; in summer he hauls gravel. 'Not Opposed' . . "People say I'm opposed to Ur- ban Renewal," said Douglas Wil- liams, .Executive Secretary of ;the Ann Arbor Community Center. "But I'm not. Something's got to be done, and I wouldn't be a con- scientious social worker and not be in favor of a better life for the people." Williams said he had opposed the plan made by the Citizens'' Committee as too drastic. He ex- pressed concern about families to be displaced, pointing at a house across the street. Its owner had bought it for $2,500 and put about $11,000 more into it for improve- ments, Williams said. The man is 63 years old, he continued, and if the city took his house without paying him enough, "What can he do but become a renter?" As for the present plan, Wil- liams said, his health had pre- vented him from keeping up, on it enough to be able to express an opinion for or against it. 'Dancing Around Issue' The opponents of Urban Renew- al are "picking out the sore spots and dancing around the issue," Don Calvert of 306 E. Summit St. said. They are overlooking the gains EMERY GATES . ,. "it'd just have to hurt" of the program, and the problem that would remain if the program were not passed. The area has to be improved sometime, Calvert said. It has come up "quite a bit" in the last three or four years, but voluntary improvement would not remove the slaughterhouse and junkyard or improve housing nearly as much as Urban Renewal would. Even now, he pointed out, the city has the power to condemn houses if they're not brought up to code. He said that if it did so without Urban Renewal the own- ers would not have the plan's of- fer of relocation housing, and they would not have the FHA offer to guarantee loans. "Urban Renewal would clear Ann Arbor of, a potential slum area," he said. "What's eleven dollars a person for that? (Ac- cording to a Democratic Party brochure, Urban Renewal would cost about $11 for one year to a citizen with property assessed at $5,000.) "It's a bunch of hogwash to say it's not needed. The slaughter- house and junkyard have no place in a residential district, and there are no real park facilities." It means "a heck of a lot," he said, to a child in school "to live in an, area he's not ashamed of." "Sure it'll cost money and hurt some people. Naturally." But the! plan would do more good than harm, and some of the "sores" in it are not as bad as they may seem. For instance, he doubts that prop- erty values would drop if the con- troversial strip of Main St. were rezoned residential. "It'll still be a Negro area," he said, so the demand will be heavy as long as Negroes are geographi- cally restricted in buying property. What does he think of the idea that a power struggle between leaders in the area is partly re- sponsible for opposition to Urban Renewal? "Well, that's an old ar- gument," he said, "Of course, the newer leaders have a following too. It's only human to try to keep your following." It was a mistake, he admits, not to come to the people sooner in the planning, but still the majorit ty of the people in the area are for the plan if it is explained ac- curately to them. "It gripes me," he said, to hear people try to say the opposite. Calvert and his wife rent an apartment that is up to code. "Heard a Lot" ... Thomas W. Sheppeard of 717 N. Fourth St. said, "I've talked about it, but I don't know enough about it to know if it's good or bad." "I heard a lot about it last spring, he went on. "Some people said it was all right, and some said it wasn't." Since then "I've been asking people about it some," and have been to a few CURE meet- ings, but still "I just haven't been around enough to hear enough. I don't know more than people tell me." He has been in his present house 21 months, he said. In that time her has fixed up' his front yard but would like to do more. He would also like, he said, to fill in his back yard somewhat and to build a garage in back, but "I don't want to go into debt." He added that his house was up to code when it was inspected last spring. "Give a Chance" ... "I think they should give the homeowners a chance to fix up their places," retired homeowner Walter Perkins of 522 Detroit St., said. "They're ,tearing down too much;" his wife added. ,$ said she had read that $5,000 was be- ing given to those whose houses were taken, but didn't know for sure. She said they had voted against Urban Renewal in the city elec- tion April 6. "This man we've 'got in now is against it," she said of Mayor Cecil 0. Creal. "He has promised to change some things." She and her husband always vote straight Republican, she said. Mrs. Perkins said their house is scheduled only to be improved. "Nobody has come through here to tell us what we've got to do," Perkins added. "Nothing is laid out for us to go by." He said he couldn't say anything more about their plans until they find out "what they're going to do and how we're going to get the money." "Don't Really Know" "I don't really know too much about Urban Renewal," Mrs. La- Vaughn Wilson of 637 N. Fourth Ave. said. Somebody had told her husband he didn't think their house would go, she said. "I wonder why they'd let it stay?" she asked. It is very tall and narrow, especially be- cause of the attic. They have re- cently painted the woodwork, the porches and the inside walls. She said Urban Renewal would make the street pretty, but that she didn't really understand it. W ": : i: rFk:. :}?jai.':2::::{:$i?:i {:::Y