Rent Strike Spreads in Ann Arbor

By Martin Porter

With negotiations for a final settlement between the Ann Arbor Tenant's Union (AATU) and Trony-Sunrise Associates drawing to a close, both tenants and landlords are trying to predict the next target of the city's growing militant tenant community.

Striking Trony-Sunrise tenants have been withholding rent payments since December 1 , in protest of what they cali "poor maintenance and security." Approximately 55 of the locally-based management company's 120 units are presently withholding rent, placing approximately $15,000 in the AATU and city escrow accounts.

R. Dewey Black, Trony-Sunrise's 23 year-old owner, and the AATU are presently negotiating in University of Michigan Mediations. Three District Court judges earlier this month approved Black 's request for mediation and court controls over his tenants' escrow funds. (Many observers believe that landlords generally fare better in mediations than they do before a jury.)

But Robert Miller of the AATU steering committee claims, "We are, so far, very satisfied with the progress in mediations." University Mediations has been given three weeks to settle the dispute, after which time the litigants have the option of an extension or returning to District Court.

Earlier this month, the AATU rejected a settlement package from Black and former Trony owners Tony Hoffman and Ron Ferguson offering an 8 per cent across-the-board rent reduction over a year's time, with individual maintenance agreements between the management company and tenants. This would amount to an approximate one-month rent reduction for the two months' rent strike.

"Our members rejected that package," says Miller, "because they believed it wasn't enough to compensate for the aggravation Trony has given them. We were pleased by their determination and militancy. They want us to continue negotiating and pressing for more political and economic demands."

Some observers, surprised by Trony-Sunrise's early concession, believe that the rent strike has caused severe cash shortages for the company , causing many Trony-Sunrise investors to bring pressure upon Black, Ferguson and Hoffman for a quick settlement. In fact, this was confirmed publicly by Trony-Sunrise attorney Gerald Matuszak.

One investor, presently selling her property to Black by land contract, contacted AATU members and explained that she hasn't received her monthly payments since the strike began. After learning about the strike from an article in the SUN , she decided to begin foreclosure procedures against Black in an effort to help the strikers.

The strike has also drawn unanimous support from University of Michigan student organizations, as well as qualified support from Ann Arbor Mayor Al Wheeler. According to Wheeler, "It'-s practices of inadequate maintenance, inferior services and unreliable security, such as have been alleged by Trony-Sunrise tenants, that have catalyzed past efforts to modify the city charter to provide for local rent control.

"I will be asking appropriate city officials to report to me what the city has been asked to do by tenants, and what has been done, and what can be done in this specific situation."

Rent control proposals have been placed on the Ann Arbor ballot for the past two years, but were soundly defeated both times due to a well-planned and well-financed counter-publicity campaign by local landlords. Wheeler has formed a special Mayor's Fair Rental Practices Committee to investigate the existing housing situation in Ann Arbor and to suggest both preventative and remedial actions that City Council should take in order to eliminate the problem. The Committee will be making preliminary recommendations early in February.

As a result of the current housing crisis, as well as the Trony strike, fifty other members of the Ann Arbor tenant community have begun to strike against their own respective landlords. According to Miller, "The Trony strike has shown people that the only way to get results is by rent striking. Tenants have responded incredibly, in a way reminiscent of the rent strikes of 1969-71."

In 1969, 1200 Ann Arbor tenants went on rent strike in what became the first major demonstration of a tenant's right to withhold rent. 1199 strikers won rent reductions, as well as maintenance demands, as a result of the two-year-long dispute.

Although the AATU is unwilling to reveal the identity of their next target, sources close to the organization claim it will be either McKinley Associates, the massive Washtenaw County management conglomerate, or one of three smaller Ann Arbor landlords: Wilson White, Reliable Realty, or Summit Hamilton.

According to Miller, "We'll just keep them guessing, and when the first of the month comes around and they don't get any rent checks in the mail, they'll know they're the one."