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SARAH BOEKE/Daily
Ann Arbor for Public Power hosts festival to
rally support for public power
Community gathers to learn about and support the movement for public power in Ann Arbor
Community members gathered at
Burns Park Sunday evening to attend
a public power festival hosted by Ann
Arbor for Public Power (A2P2), a non-
profit organization advocating for the
city to municipalize its energy utility
and replace DTE Energy, the private
utility company currently serving
Ann Arbor, with a publicly owned
energy utility. The Sunday festival
featured live music, educational
booths and speeches from guest
speakers.
Based on a report by the energy
commission,
the
City
Council
approved a resolution on Jan. 18 to
request a feasibility study and explore
options for 100% renewable energy
sources. Currently, 90% of DTE’s
energy comes from non-renewable
sources. 41 towns and cities in
Michigan are served by public power
utilities.
A2P2 President Greg Woodring
spoke on why A2P2 organized the
festival in an interview with The
Michigan Daily, citing City Council’s
approval of the feasibility study as
‘The Missing Middle’: Ann Arbor community members work
to reverse the decline in working-class homeownership
As people begin to notice a decline in home-ownership among the working class, several Ann Arbor
community members begin working to address the issue
Brian
Chambers,
a
Ward
3
resident and U-M alumni, has a
long history of housing advocacy
in the city. This year, his 39-page
volunteer project, titled “Ann Arbor’s
Middle-Income
Needs
Analysis:
Introducing
the
Neighborhood
Assistance Corporation of America
(NACA),” motivated a May 5 City
Council resolution to collect and
communicate
home
mortgage
information. In an interview with
The Michigan Daily, Chambers gave
his first-hand account of the wealth-
building power of homeownership.
“I bought my first house when I was
in graduate school (at the University)
in 1984, with a joint investment from
CHEN LYU
Daily Staff Reporter
CHEN LYU
Daily Staff Reporter
Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com
ANN ARBOR
ANN ARBOR
reason to celebrate and continue
advocating for public power.
“We have had this campaign
for a little over two years by now,”
Woodring said. “We’ve gotten a
study approved with the city. Today
we want to celebrate that success
and explain to people that now is the
time for public power, that we have a
real chance at doing something huge
here.”
Lauren Sargent, an A2P2 member
and
an
organizer
of
Sunday’s
festival, told The Daily she believes a
municipal energy utility is necessary
to make sure the city’s electricity is
100% from renewable sources.
“There
is
a
method
called
Community Choice Aggregation that
some states have where we could
have a choice of where we buy our
power and that we could choose to
buy power that is generated through
100% renewable energy,” Sargent
said. “But that is not legal in Michigan.
The other possibility is that we could
build our own utility, and we build
it and control it … we already have a
legal framework for that.”
State Rep. Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann
Arbor, who has endorsed A2P2’s
mission, was one of the festival’s
featured speakers.
“What could we do if we did
not take our money and send it to
Wall Street?” Rabhi said. “What
could we do with that money as
a community? Well, there’s only
one way to find out: making our
own municipal utility right here,
reclaiming our power and making
sure our money is staying in our
community and invested in our
grid right here at home.”
The
festival
also
featured
educational
booths
to
spread
awareness about public power and
other topics related to sustainability
and the environment.
Ernesto Querijero, a Washtenaw
Community
College
faculty
member and a trustee at the Ann
Arbor Public Schools Board of
Education, set up a table where he
and his wife gave out free books
regarding different energy sources
and their environmental impacts.
my in-laws,” Chambers said. “…since
then, the housing price has increased
a lot but we’ve been able to keep our
housing cost at 1984 levels, as the
mortgage payments are fixed.”
According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, if Chambers was not a
homeowner, the rent he would be
paying today would have increased by
75% from the level it was at in 2000.
The average housing price in Ann
Arbor, on the other hand, is now five
times the level it was in 1984.
Prospective home buyers must
have enough savings to cover the
downpayment and closing cost before
buying a house. The post-pandemic
housing boom has made reaching
this saving threshold increasingly
difficult. According to the Ann Arbor
Area Board of Realtors, for-sale
home inventory in Ann Arbor has
shrunk by almost 60% in the past
year, while the median price of single
family homes increased by 11.4%. In
an interview with TheDaily, Lauren
Corneliussen, a buyer’s agent based
in Ann Arbor, explained how these
trends cause frustration for first-time
home buyers.
“It could take as many as three
deals to get your final accepted offer,”
Corneliussen said. “(For homebuyers),
it takes longer to buy, it’s harder to
buy and it’s more stressful, and you
pay for stress in money by losing work
or making snap decisions.”
Chambers said he wants to unlock
homeownership opportunities for
more people and that the story of
Veronica Brandon, who was able to
own a house thanks to mortgages
from NACA, is especially compelling
for him. He examined the U.S. Census
(between 2010 and 2019) and
Bureau of Labor Statistics to further
understand recent home ownership
patterns. He found that the lower-
tier of middle-income households
(annual income between $50,000
to $100,000) has seen sharp
declines in homeownership, and
the low-income (annual income
below $50,000) households are
disappearing even from the rental
market. Chambers presumed these
renters were priced out by middle-
income households forced into the
rental market.
In competitive housing markets
like Ann Arbor, a larger range of
potential homeowners would need
help affording a house. Chambers
said he believes NACA could help.