"build Homes Not Parking Lots"

"BUILD HOMES NOT PARKING LOTS"

by Ken Garber

The small surface parking lot on N. Ashley Street, rucked in behind Kline's department store, rivals the nearby Library lot on Fifth Ave. in popularity among downtown shoppers. On most Saturday mornings it fills quickly, but as a light fog lifted on this particular Saturday morning in mid-April it was almost completely empty.

Empty of cars, that is. In front of each parking meter stood cardboard boxes of varying sizes, with the word "home" painted in orange, red or blue paint along with crudely drawn windows and roof-lines. Some boxes were adorned with cardboard picket fences and carefully drawn flower beds. A sign at the entrance said "Lot's Full" and another read "Build Homes Not Lots," and sign-carrying protesters prevented cars from entering.

The April 15 action was perhaps the first demonstration in Ann Arbor history to blockade a parking lot instead of a building. Renuka Uthappa, a U-M senior and an active member of the Homeless Action Committee (HAC), said the site was chosen because of the $9 million parking structure soon lo be built there. "We're trying to force the city to change its priorities and allocate more money to housing," she said. Explaining that the committee had gone before City Council last November to ask for help in providing housing for the homeless, Uthappa said that city officials told them that the city lacked the resources to build housing. "Our position has been that the city lacks the will, not the resources," she said.

The money spent to build the parking structure is clear evidence that funds exist to begin to address the city's affordable housing crisis, said Uthappa. "It's so obvious - you can't argue that it's more important to house cars than to house people."

By 11 am the small crowd had swelled to about 100 people. Most of those scattered around the parking lot were young-looking, but there were several couples with children and several older people. One of them was June Lindsay, a member of the Gray Panthers. "Two beautiful young people came to our meeting and told us about their work with the homeless," she said. "The Gray Panthers believe in putting people first, above profits, and we endorsed them."

At about 11:30 am Uthappa climbed on the back of a pickup truck with a megaphone and asked everyone to gather around for a short program. There was a brief theater presentation by seven people carrying signs identifying them as "Physically Disabled," "Vietnam Vet," "Single Mother," "Mental Problems," and "Unemployed Man." One by one they stepped forward, saying "You know me only as homeless - you avoid (ignore, don't look at, are afraid of) me." Each actor alternately narrated a story of homelessness and offered factual information such as "Federal support for housing was slashed by 77% during the Reagan years" and "2.5 million units of affordable housing have disappeared since 1980."

In Ann Arbor, the term "affordable housing" has become a contradiction in terms as both rents and home prices have skyrocketed in recent years. The city's average rent in 1988 was $514 a month and the average home sold for $133,904 (The Ann Arbor News, 3/18/89). City officials acknowledge the problem but have done little to solve it, citing either lack of resources or the desire to rely on "market forces" to find a solution. But housing activists believe the city's Downtown Development Authority (DDA) has both the responsibility and the money to create affordable housing in Ann Arbor.

The DDA is an appointed city commission whose primary purpose is the improvement of downtown for public benefit. It captures tax funds from new downtown developments and from increased valuations on existing buildings. With this money, the DDA has so far built two parking structures for $13 million and plans at least three more, including the Kline's lot structure and an underground structure to accompany a Comerica Bank office building. All but 10% of the 317 spaces are for use by Comerica only - a huge DDA subsidy. To date, there are no plans to build or subsidize new downtown housing, despite state-enabling legislation permitting use of DDA funds for housing.

According to DDA chairman Jim Hart, the DDA charter does not allow for construction or direct subsidy of housing in the downtown. Even if it were modified to allow housing, as state law permits, it might not be appropriate, said Hart. "There is a need for housing, but DDA isn'l the answer for it," he said, citing expensive and scarce land for building downtown as well as a pressing need for more parking so the fragile downtown retail trade can be protected. "Given a choice between a parking structure and low-income housing, I think everyone would say, 'build housing,' but there are other factors to consider."

HAC member Larry Fox said his group will continue to work to change the city's priorities. "We'll continue to find new creative ways lo pressure Council and the DDA to build housing," said Fox. "We won't allow these parking structures to be built until we see some new affordable housing units. If necessary, we'll use our bodies to stop the bulldozers," he said.

The parking lot occupation ended around 4 o'clock. The cardboard boxes were removed and cars once again began to queue up to use the lot. One of the day's speakers, Jim Clough, a 26-year old resident of the city shelter on W.Huron, summed up the theme of the protest with the question, "Why do the cars have better homes than we do?"