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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.

