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Housing

Housing image
Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
September
Year
1976
OCR Text

 

HOUSING

by Robert Miller

   Tenant organizations, which are based on a labor union model, can help tenants end discrimination, improve maintenance, lower rents and restore the basic integrity of urban communities. Besides counselling all tenants on their legal rights, Tenant Unions must organize locals of people who rent from the same landlord to bargain collectively from a position of strength.

   While each local develops ts own demands on a particular landlord, the Union as a whole coordinates the resources arid the political and economic power of all Michigan tenants. Independence for the locals and solidarity among tenants is the foundation of dynamic Tenant Unions.

  Educating and organizing on the agenda. In Michigan, tenants can withold their rent if their apartment is not maintained at city or state housing code standards. Violations of the lease, or a failure to do maintenance on the part of the landlord, provides legal grounds for withholding rent.

     The Tenants Rights Act of 1968, which is the law in question, sterns from the Detroit Rebellion of 1967. The task force which studied the causes of the up- rising found that landlord problems were a major cause. Unfortunately, those problems remain, and most tenants are unaware of their right to withhold rent.

   Yet the problems of Michigan tenants extend far beyond the basic need for a well-maintained apartment. The courts alone are not the solution.

    Neighborhoods are being destroyed by absentee landlords, red-lining by banks and insurance companies, and the replacement of housing by modernesque offices and parking lots. Rents are still going up while this housing depression continues.

   People who receive Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) are often refused apartments without a reason, while the law protects the landlord's "privilege" to discriminate on the basis of economic status even if the tenant proves he or she has sufficient funds for rent. Meanwhile, "legal" discrimination on the basis of economic status acts as a shield for racism and sexism.

   Shoddy maintenance, discrimination, and high rents are the rule-workers, blacks, and women experience personal - anguish and economic hardship as landlords, financed by banks and corporations, line their pockets with cash.

   "Tenant Unionism" is not just an idea. It is a program to put an end to all housing crimes. A democratic union with membership control and emphasizing militant action gives power to tenants to control rental conditions. As individuals, tenants can be harassed by their landlord and picked off one by one. But a union protects its members as it helps them win their demands.

   By forming alliances with labor unions, by asserting legal rights, and by using the economic and political power of tenants to confront landlords through collective bargaining, leases can be changed, rents lowered and maintenance improved.

   Great gains are being made by tenants groups in Detroit, Ann Arbor and throughout the state. The formation of a state-wide Tenants Union would consolidate these gains and provide the framework for a solid step forward in establishing the power of tenants.