4 GROUNDCOVER NEWS HOUSING Imagine paying thousands of dollars for various fees months before living in your apartment. This is the reality for Ann Arbor renters. In addition, tenants experience a lack of maintenance, instability, renewal struggles, landlords dodging legislation, and waitlists, not to mention immense cost! Finding a place to rent is vital for those who aren’t ready to invest in a house. Over the past decades, deceitful landowner tactics have made the process of finding housing extremely difficult and downright unfair. I sat down with Zachariah Farah, University of Michigan alumnus and current member of the Ann Arbor Renters Commission, to discuss these landlord tactics. As a member of the Central Student Government, he was approached by the Graduate Employees' Organization’s Housing Caucus for support in changing the city’s Early Leasing Ordinance. The ELO determines when a landlord can ask for renewal. At the time, landlords had the liberty to ask for renewal only 70 days into the present lease term. If you were to decline this renewal opportunity, your home could be rented to a new tenant. This was a pressure tactic by landlords. With only 70 days in your unit, how would you know whether you want to SAMIHA RAHMAN U-M student contributor necessary. Nowadays, what happens if you do agree to renew your lease? The landlord must accept your wish, regardless of how many individuals are on a waiting list. In 2022, Ann Arbor passed Right to Renew, requiring landlords to make a good faith renewal offer to current tenants. If landlords don’t comply, they are required to pay a two-month relocation stipend. This law is designed to prioritize the stability of current tenants. continue living there or not? CSG drafted an amendment to the Early Leasing Ordinance, which was passed by City Council in 2021. Although CSG and GEO were requesting the time be extended to 210 days into the lease, they were only able to get the date amended to 150 days, offering light reassurance that your unit won’t be shown or rented out to someone else. Upset landlords immediately dashed to find loopholes. Landlords implemented waitlists, exploiting prospective tenants, charging them a “waitlist fee” with no guarantee for a unit. Landlords take advantage of desperate students and residents looking for extremely limited housing, creating a sense of false hope and charging more money than MARCH 10, 2023 The Ann Arbor rental market is a pretty scary place GEO’s Housing Caucus is also starting conversation around rent stabilization to help fight the ridiculous cost of rent. However, in Michigan, municipal-level rent control is preempted by state law. Many tenants around Michigan are seeking a reversal of the state-level preemption. This would allow cities to have control and start acting right now to control the high cost of rent. see RENTAL page 7 GET CONNECTED The Renters Commission is looking to fill two vacant tenant seats. Individuals belonging to historically underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. Applications are especially welcomed from individuals with disabilities, individuals who have experienced housing insecurity, individuals who have enrolled in low income/ Section 8 housing, or individuals belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups. Applicants need not be renters, though some personal experience with renting or struggling to rent is preferred. You can read more about the Commission here: a2gov.org/renterscommission To apply, please fill out this application form: http://a2gov.legistar.com/Page.aspx?M=Q If you have any questions, please email renterscommission@a2gov.org Housing issues and solutions in northern Michigan Housing shortages plague the entire state of Michigan but the causes — with the exception of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) — and solutions vary by locale. It is difficult to find suitable sites to build on around Ann Arbor. In northern Michigan it is difficult to find the skilled tradesman needed to build housing. Ironically, that shortage of workers is due in large part to the lack of affordable housing. Rural areas also often have greater difficulty getting approved for Low Income Housing Tax Credits. (The federal government offers tax credits to private investors like banks that use that money to help finance the construction of low-income housing.) “There has to be some kind of funding that usually comes from the state or federal level to subsidize it a little bit, just because it's so expensive to build,” said Corey Monroe, development coordinator for Haan Development which is building 60 units of affordable housing on Emmet St. in Petoskey. They received assistance SUSAN BECKETT Publisher emeritus The cost of living there is high, too — from the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation’s Emmet Housing Solutions Fund after they were denied the tax credit funding. In vacation destinations such as Grand Traverse, Charlevoix and Emmet counties, 32% of housing is non-homestead (rental properties or second homes) and the cost of an average house ranges from $500,000 to $600,000, depending on the county. Across the ten counties served by the non-profit Housing North, 40% of the population is rent-burdened. comparable to that of Washtenaw County — but they generally lack services such as public transportation that help make ends meet. Exceptions include Boyne City which offers Monday through Saturday daytime pickup and drop-off anywhere in Charlevoix County, and Traverse City which has public buses Monday through Saturday. Both have consistently made choices to maintain livability for a large cross-section of residents. Some remedies to the affordable housing shortage could be implemented this year. American Rescue Program Act funds for shovel-ready projects should include projects that increase the housing stock for low and moderate income families. A renter’s tax credit, issued monthly by the IRS, could help some middle-income year-round residents afford to rent properties that are typically occupied just a few months each year by vacationers, or only during the school year by college students. It would also provide relief to the multitude of low and middle-income renters whose rent exceeds 30% of their income. Currently, the primary beneficiaries of our tax code are wealthy individuals and corporations, often at the expense of those with lower incomes or little wealth. Congress spends approximately $200 billion per year on housing, but the majority of that goes to the highest income households through benefits like the mortgage interest deduction. The wealthiest seven million households in the country receive more housing assistance through tax credits than the 55 million lowest-income renters, according to a 2017 article in The Hill. There are four new Michigan laws granting municipalities greater power to offer tax-reduction incentives to build affordable housing within their boundaries. Maybe that will persuade some developers to build for ordinary people instead of the wealthy. And maybe it’s time to adjust the federal tax code to discourage the ownership of multiple houses.
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