ell aMtrigan saul
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What's wrong with city housing market?

420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104

News Phone: 764-0552

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1973

City rent controls needed

TNANTS in Ann Arbor pay too much
for too little. The cost of living space
is way out of line and only the landlords
prosper.
The landlords have all the trump cards
in their hands:
-a massive and captive student housing
market that must live near the Univer-
sity regardless of cost.
--an abnormally low vacancy rate.
-a market which tends to be far less
competitive than normal.
Rents have spiraled to a level far in
excess of statewide averages and because
of the conditions present in the local
housing market will not go down natur-
ally.
But rents must be reduced.
Consequently, artificial c o n t r o 1 s
should be imposed in an effort to slash
the exorbitant rates now charged tenants,
Whether the best method is rent control,
profit control, or what remains to be
seen. Still a definitive move to reduce cost
to the tenant is necessary.
CITY GOVERNMENT, however, has
dragged its feet in establishing any
meaningful policy ,concerning rent con-
trols. Of course, expecting the politicians
tio enact legislation hurting business in-

terests - in this case landlords - may be
idealistic.
Last February City Council set up a
commission to study and issue recom-
mendations on the feasibility of rent con-
trol. The group has collected an extensive
amount of data proving that Ann Arbor
is a low competition market, rents are
very high, and tenants are generally up-
set about the overall housing situation.
The commission, representing both
landlord and tenant interests will ulti-
mately urge further study of the situa-
tion, delaying institution of price con-
trols even longer.
THE CITY OUGHT to establish a group
with the express purpose of deter-
mining the best method of reducing rents
and let them go to work. Council then
must waste no time in enacting legisla-
tion necessary to accomplish that goal.
Only such a direct and clearly defined
program can effectively combat the
problem of excessive rents currently fac-
ing local tenants. There is no reason why
landlords should continue to line their
pockets by "ripping off" people who have
no means of fighting back.
Tough, strictly enforced, rent control
legislation would help provide that means.

By EV EHRLICH
LAST APRIL, Mayor Harris, the Demo-
cratic mayor whose regime was depos-
ed by Jim Stephenson a few months ago,
created a "study commission" to investi-
gate the terribly difficult question of whe-
ther rents in Ann Arbor were too high. The
Mayor, who owned a house, apparently had
forgotten what it was like to pay monthly
bounty to a faceless landlord who d o e s
nothing but hide in an office marked "Pri-
vate." Given this understandable lapse, the
Mayor turned to the "experts" for an an-
swer. Turning to the tenants seems to have
been an alternative the Mayor decided
against; after all, the tenants only pay the
rent, so what could they possibly know
about it?
Not that the Mayor had a genuine curio-
sity, mind you. When the Human Rights
Party proposed an ordinance that would
commit the city to a rent control program,
Harris and all the Democratic city council-
men (they had no councilwomen way back
then in April 1973) voted against it, and the
ordinance bit the dust by the usual score
that season: 9-2. Having trashed the idea,
Harris set up a commission to study it,
packed it with experts and entrepreneurs,
and let it roll. Months later, in a letter
to The Dally, Harris' own appointees, fed
up with studying an idea they all preferred
to kill, accused the Mayor of "political ex-
pediency" in setting up the commission.
Once again, we told you so.
The commission's work is over, and the
experts and entrepreneurs have done what
they traditionally do; little to help the
average human. The commission has man-'
aged to die, and the report it compiled mak-
es no significant policy recommendations.
Given the commission's demise, and the
dollars and cents orientation of the present
City Council, it's about time to take this
matter out of the hands of the politicians,
and give it to the people.
ANN ARBOR has the second highest
rents in the country, and it's not because
Ann Arbor's labor unions the world's tough-
est, or because Ann Arbor land can be
traded ounce for ounce with CIA smack.
Tenants, on the average in the U.S., pay
about 22 per cent of their incomes for rent.
In campus area Ann Arbor, they pay
about 33 per cent. In 21 of 24 Ann
Arbor census tracts, rents are higher than
they would be if predicted using national
averages. From 1960-1970, according to the
census, Ann Arbor's rents have risen three
times faster than the national average, so
now over half of Ann Arbor's tenants are
paying more than 25 per cent of their in-
comes on rent. It's too much-rents should,
be controlled.
And while Ann Arbor's housing is high
priced, there's not much of it. In fact, the.+
1970 census gave Ann Arbor's vacancy rate
rate as 3.5 per cent, a third of the national
average. This squeeze is transformed into
higher rent, especially when combined with

the free-for-all in which housing is rented
every spring. The landlord is able to bring
home the next dollar by refusing to build
the next house, leaving tenants behind the
eightball. Controls will get them out.
IF YOUR rent paid for only the costs
of building the structure you live in, the
costs of maintaining it, and the costs of
providing it with utilities, your rent would
be less than half what it is now. Who
gets the rest? The banks get a lot of it.
Landlords are usually wealthy, but still,
they don't have a few million dollars around
to build an apartment. The banks do, and
they demand, and get, often as much as
20 cents of your rent dollar in the form of
interest payments (not principal repay-
ments) on the loan that financed the house.
With Nixon prepared to eliminate the in-
terest rate ceiling on mortgages, this fig-
ure promises to go higher, as the banks'

gan state income taxes it you re
reflects the fact that you did in
those property taxes. You'll pay a
this year in property taxes. Do
any property?
And of course, the landlord is t
share. The landlord takes about
on the dollar in the form of
sometimes more, if ersatz r"mar
fees" are scrutinized. It's an awf
money, and it's amazing to think
landlord will never do any honest
earn it. The landlord is nothing m
a middleman, a master of account
buggery who cojoles capital from
and builds a house that his tenants
their rent, will buy for him. Hi
for being is that he has always 1
master stroke is a grand sham. B
Depression of the '30's, banks w
lords. Instead of lending the mon
"landlord", and getting some prof

"Ann Arbor has the second highest r e n ts in the cou
and it's not because Ann Arbor's labor unions are the wo
toughest, or because Ann Arbor land can be traded o
for ounce with CIA smack."

profits increase. It's worthwhile to note
that the banks do no work - the workers
who build and maintain the house are
the people who make the house possible.
The banks are merely a financial junta.,
that expropriates its share of the take.
And the take is tremendous! When form-
er city councilman Robert Weaver, h i m-
self a financier of some repute, says that
". .. the financial institutions are the real
whores", he's saying more than Republican
politicians are sexists!
IF YOUR building is more than 25 years
old, then the costs of construction have
already been paid off. Still, the landlord
that used to own the building is getting
some of your rent! The old landlord paid.
off the cost of erecting the building (by
taking the mortgage payments out of your
rent), and then sold it. The new land-
lord buys the house, usually at a greater
price, and starts taking his mortgage
payments to the first landlord out of your
rent. So not only do tenants pay for put-
ting up the house, they also foot the bill
for the next speculator who buys it. In
the course of one building's existence, the
tenants who live there pay off the "costs"
of the building many times. First to the
bank, then to the previous owners. It's a
lot of give, but very little take.
The government receives about 25 cents
of your rent dollar in the form of the land-
lord's property taxes. You didn't expect
the landlord to pay them, did you? On the
bright side, however, is the fact that you
are entitled to a deduction in your Michi-

built the house themselves and to
profit. However, the bank collaps
Depression proved this system tot
able for New Deal politicians; b
lapse meant real estate collapse
curities collapse, and in capitalism
is a contagious disorder. Seeing t
being committed to capitalism'se
bank landlordship was outlawed, a
lords" became more frequent. For
ant, the creation of a new string
dlemen meant that it was out of
ing pan, into the trash masher.
BUT THE landlord's take doe
with profit from rent. The lindlo
titled to deduct, get this now, a
operating costs (maintenance, uti
terest payments, and managemen
es) from his income for tax purp
example, a landlord with a taxabl
of $50,000, which isn't at all ra
50 cents tax on each additionalc
earns. So for each dollar the go
knocks off his taxable income,t
lord saves 50 cents, or, the go
snlits the landlord's costs with the
The official line is that these]
serve to increase investment in hou
tually, the loooholes serve to pr
landlord's profits from competitio
recting the profit from the landlor
enterprise (Stickemup Associates)
landlord himself (Fred J. Stickemu
if rental profit goes down, tax sa'
still guarantee the landlord a con
profit at taxpayer expense. Now
reason that the landlord can ut
break is that tenants rent his prope

nt which as tenant, entitle Fred Stickemup's account-
fact pay ant to hack large amounts off Fred's taxes.
bout $250 WHAT'S MORE, the building that a land-
you own lord owns is said to "depreciate", or lose
value, each year. In reality, they don't lose
aking his value. In fact, they usually gain value for
25 cents reasons of speculation. Yet the government
profit - makes up a formula which states that the
nagement house loses value at a rate sometimes equal
ful lot of to 3.3 per cent, but usually more, every
that the year. If the landlord pays 50 per cent tax
work to on the dollar of taxable income, then half
Wore than of this purely fictional loss ends up in the
ing hum- landlord's pocket. Another wallet trans-
the bank plant.
, through All these tax savings, which sometimes
s reason yield more profit than the rent itself, rad-
been; his ically alter the "we're going bankrupt" im-
efore the age landlords enjoy contriving, or as it
ere land- might be put, "donning well-tailored sack-
ey to a cloth." These profits are taken from you;
fit, banks as both a tenant and a taxpayer. You're
entitled to get some of it back. That's
* . .what controls ought to do.
Controls would have another worthwhile
entry, effect. If one looks at housing growth in
rld's Ann Arbor, it has been almost exclusively
limited to housing outside the center of
'un e town, primarily for "outcommuters", in the
past five years. Ann Arbor is becominga
bedroom community - its residents work
elsewhere. Who decided that Ann Arbor
ok all the would head in this direction? The develop
es of the ers of Briarwood did, and so did the build
be unten- ers who put up the developments that at-
bank col- tracted the commuters here. The 'residents
and se- of Ann Arbor centainly didn't. Controls
collapse would dissuade this trend, and also help
his, and preserve our small landlord.
existence, THE MEMBERS of the rent control study
nd "land- commission know all this stuff. Harris knew
r the ten- it when he was running the city, Stephenson
of mid- knows it now. )Landlords have known it all
the fry- along. But now, tenants are beginning to
know it, and only tenants have the will to
sn't stop change it. The landlords and the experts
lrd is en- don't, they've certainly proven that. Ann
ll of his Arbor needs rent control, to curb high
lities, in- rents, excessive profits, and its trend tow-
t expens- ards commuter-residents. The Human
oses. For Rights Party is preparing a rent, control
le income ordinance for the City's charter, which
are, pays would be voted up or down in April, t y the
dollar he voters, not the Council. The details ppar-
vernment ently will be announced at the Party's
the land- mass meeting on October 11. It is an ordin-
vernment ance that addresses itself to the problems
landlord! listed above, and to the problems of dewav-
loopholes ing maintenance and tenants' rights. It
using.A will be a welcome first step towards eli-
otect the -minating the passwords under which land-
on by di- lords have pinned tenants to the wall for
d's phony years:
to the "Your home is my castle!"
ip). Thus,
vings willdal Ehrlich, who i'as a member of the
isiderable Rent Control Study Commission, is a mem--
the only
ilize this her of the Human Rights Party, and .fie
°rty. You, Union for Radical Political Economics.

a

K;

Another 'foeign aid fiasco

WHEN THE SENATE Tuesday passed
what Hubert Humphrey called "the
lowest authorization in legislative history
on foreign aid," it approved the cheapest
crazy quilt of racism, toothless good in-
tentions, and leftover Cold War scraps in
memory.
The bill's schizoid character derives
from the contradictory goals of American
foreign aid: to help the needy abroad,
and to buy allies where they are neces-
sary.
Unfortunately, "free" world allies have
once again taken priority over nations of
more limited military importance. We
continue to underwrite police states, and
to reject projects that would ease suffer-
ing from famine, flood, and plague as too
costly.
THE UNITED STATES next year will
foot the bill for President Thieu's
exorbitant regime in Vietnam, in the
grand tradition of Greece, Spain, et al.
And while Ted Kennedy's rider to hold
aid to Chile until civil rights are clearly
protected there is touching, it will be
laughably ineffective. Congressional rid-
ers to withhold appropriations have been
consistently ignored by the present ad-
ministration. The bathos is multiplied
by another amendment which gives Rich-
TODAY'S STAFF:
News: Penny Blank, Charlie Coleman,'
Mike Duweck, Chris Parks, Gene Rob-
inson
Editorial Page: Terry Gallagher, Marnie
Heyn, Zachary Schiller' Eric Schoch,
David Yalowitz
Arts Page: Diane Levick, Sara Rimer,
Mara Shapiro
Photo Technician: Steve Kagan

ard Nixon the power to decide when civil
rights have been reestablished.
The Red Cross will receive $10 million
for its work in Indochina. No stipulations
were made regarding aid and treatment
for 200,000 political prisoners in South
Vietnam. In addition, $12,000 was appro-
priated for plastic surgery for war vic-
tims. It can only be hoped that it will go
to civilians who were napalmed, and not
to the wives of army generals for cosmetic
eyelid alteration, as, has happened in
practice in the past.
1N AFRICA, Albert Schweitzer's hospital
in Gabon gets $1 million, but the 10
million Africans who will starve to death
in the wake of the Sahara's southward
migration will get not one cent. Other
disaster victims in Pakistan and Nicara-
gua will receive the same neglect, which
cannot be called benign even humorously.
Such help and non-help are taking
shape as a sort of Newspeak economic
maxim: guns are always cheaper than
butter, but support for fascist or proto-
fascist allies may be cheaper than either.
There must be a better system for al-
locating funds for aid abroad. The first
step in devising a better method would
be to demand an accounting on ugly and
ubiquitous "development aid" schemes-
and possibly eliminate them altogether.
THE NEXT STEP would be to send
money only where it would buy tan-
gible goods like food, shelter, clothing,
tools, and medicine, rather than things
like hearts and minds, because funding
such intangibles has led only to places
like My Lai.
The American people have already
bought tickets to too many of those
places.

Buchanan testimony largely anticlimactic

By JAMES WECHSLER
PAT BUCHANAN proudly iden-
tifies himself as the truest con-
servative among the survivors on
President Nixon's battered White
House team and last week he val-
iantly went forth to battle against
the Ervin Committee. But his tes-
timony seemly largely irrelevant
and anticlimactic in the contem-
porary Washington scene.
Amid the ruins of an Administra-
tion whose top two officials both
face the threat of impeachment
before their terms are completed,
Buchanan solemnly reiterated his
belief that the election of Ed Mus-
kie, Hubert Humphrey or George
McGovern would have been an ir-
retrievable disaster; only Henry
Jackson's success would h a v e
been consistent with national sur-
vival.
Buchanan's apocalyptic view of
what might have happened had any
one of the three dangerous Demo-
crats prevailed sounded like poli-
tical theater of the absurd against
the background of current disin-
tegration in high places.
IN ADVANCING his thesis, Bu-
chanan primarily condemned t h e
Muskie, McGovern and (in the lat-
ter stages, he said) Humphrey po-
sitions on Southeast Asia. Al-
though he did not elaborate, he ap-
peared to be saying that Mr. Nix-
on's triumph had rescued human-
ity from the Communist hordes.
Neither the Vietnamese nor the
Cambodians may find solace in
Buchanan's judgment that their
bodies and souls have been saved.
But one could only experience awe
and astonishment at Buchanan's
apparent insensitivity to the di-
mensions of the internal crisis the
Administration faces after the land-
slide triumph in which he is still
exulting.
Admittedly Buchanan conceded
that not everything that was done
in the Nixon cause was beyond
reproach. Much of his time on the
stand involved rather labored at-
tempts by committee members to
discern where he drew the line

between politics as usual and un-
conscionably dirty .business; his
answers were sometimes witty if
not profound. In a different setting,
his performance might have been
considered an exercise in artful
advocacy.
THE DIFFICULTY is that he
was talking as if nothing v e r y
serious had occurred since the vot-
ers gave the Nixon-Agnew ticket
a sweeping "mandate." In a sense,
however, partly because of the
previous work of the committee,
the hearings have been overwhelm-
ed by events. It no longer seems
too crucial to pursue the issue of
how extensively clandestine Re-
publican operations influenced the
course of the Democrat primaries.
The greater question is whether
our institutions are capable of deal-
ing with larger convulsions.
I am not suggesting that the cur-
tain be lowered on the inquiry
or echoing Mr. Nixon's desperate
plea that we bury the past and
get on with "the people's busi-
ness." It is wholly conceivable,
however, that the most urgent
business of the people - and Con-
gress - in the not too distant fu-
ture will be the reshaping of a
government whose top leaders
have been politically and/or legally
incapacitated.
OBVIOUSLY THERE is a wist-
ful hope inside the White H o u s e
that the Agnew affair will take the
heat off Mr. Nixon, and that, after
Agnew has been conveniently elim-
inated, the selection of a new Vice,
President will inaugurate a new
era of good feeling.
But too many forces already set
in motion shadow that optimistic
if somewhat cold-blooded script.
For one thing, the President has
explosive unfinished matters of his
own pending before the courts, and
seems to be digging himself deep-
er into a no-compromise stance.
His ability to communicate with
the country is steadily declining;
it is at least questionable whether
he can reestablish any degree of
command. And White House hand-

-
.
. .. -..
4
. ' A
... . r

ling of the Agnew case is plainly
stirring a backlash against Mr.
Nixon.
IN THESE circumstances, it 'is
hard to fathom why no substan-
tial bloc in the Senate and House
is manifesting active interest in.
the amendment proposed by Rep.
,Bingham (D-N.Y,) and a counter-
part sponsored by Reps. Green (D-
Ore.) and Udall (D-Ariz.). These
measures, described in a recent
column here, differ in some details
but have a common principle; both
would empower Congress to call a

Buchanan testifies
new national election if, in the
'language of Bingham's amend-
ment, "a President has so lost the
confidence of the people that he
can no longer perform his duties."
It will be said that such a mo-
ment is not at hand. But enact-
ment of such an amendment, re-
quiring ratification by three-fourths
of the states, would take m a n y
months after Congressional p-
proval. Surely there is enough trou-
ble in the air to justify the begin-
ning of full-scale debate on -the
measure. No one anticipated 10

months ago that the decline and
fall of the Nixon regime could oc-
cur so precipitously. Where may
we be 10 months from now? Would
many Americans prefer the ac-
cession to the Presidency of Rep.
Carl Albert to a genuine new elec-
tion? Let them at least have a
chance to contemplate the. choice.
fames Wechsler is editorial page
editor of the New York Post.
Copyright 1973 - The New York
Post Corporation.


Letters: Another side to

UHC elections

To The Daily:
WAS I EVER shocked when I

Last spring after the first SGC
election was voided, the University

I challenge anyone to prove ths
so-called massive ballot fraud with
mathprp tnoan-wpr the rhnosps;o

can't help but wonder wX1' CSJ
did not overturn the SGC ele.t.nm
oh")

to the UHC constitution, wbhic was
overwhelmingly ratified by t h e
stu~dents. the case should havie been