Tenters Ask U Housing

The first student demonstration of the University's fall term is a quiet affair involving the pitching of a few tents on the Central Campus Diagonal by the U-M Tenants Union, a group which has been promoting a rent strike against local landlords since early 1969. Tenants Union Secretary Fred S. Arnold said this morning about 50 students slept in the tents last night to draw attention to the fact that few apartments for students have been built here in the past two or three year,s, and to publicize a demand for construction by the U-M of 5,000 "lowrent tenant controlled apartments." Arnold said the tenters are prepared to stay "indefinitely - until we get a positive response from the University." He also said he has an apartment for the fall term. Another tenter said he is new to Ann Arbor and has no apartment or room, having been "kicked out" of an Inter-Cooperative Council unit where "I was crashing." Permission to leave the tents up, with an understanding no toilet facilities will be provided, was granted by U-M President Robben W. Fleming yesterday in a meeting with Tenants Union leaders after the tents were in place. Arnold said the tents are borrowed from other students and from two faculty members. He said the tenters have access to some U-M buildings. U-M Security Director Rolland J. Gainsley said this morning the tenters are not authorized to have keys to any U-M buildings. U-M Housing Director John G. Feldkamp, who said last week rooms have been found for virtually all freshmen in dormitories and fraternities declared today: "If there is an absolute shortage of housing for students I am unaware of it." Members of his staff said vacancies exist in the U-M's Baits and Oxford housing units. , Arnold said the Tenants Union is aware that the U-M Board of Regents reserved 25 acres on North Campus this summer for sale to the U-M Credit Union Cooperative Housing Committee, which hopes to obtain a federal loan for 600 low-rent apartments under Sec. 236 of the 1968 Housing Act. He said he is also aware of U-M efforts to sell bonds to finance 400 apartments for married students and staff on North Campus. . "That's only 1,000 places," Arnold declared. "They ought to be doing things like using Inglis House, where the regents stay once a month, for student housing. ' He expressed certainty that "monies are available" for at i least 5,000 U-M sponsored low-rent units.