Housing Is His Major Concern

Frank Shoichet, of 633 Church St „ has announced his candidacy for the Human Rights Party's Second Ward city council nomination. Shoichet, who meets Richard Ankli in the Feb. 17 primary, released the following statement. "As a Second Ward candidate, housing merits my first attention. In America today, 90 per cent of new residential construction is beyond the price range of 64 per cent of the people. Even in 'prosperous' Ann Arbor, the "free enterprise" system has failed. The city is too expensive for many of its own workers to live in, an ironic result of housing for profit. "To protect the immediate interests of tenants, HRP 'has placed an improved rent control program on the ballot. It meets many of the criticisms leveled at last year's plan, while toughening restrictions on landlord abuses. It deserves support. "So do specific, detailed proposals I will submit to HRP to aid tenants, including: controls against apartment-referral agency rip-offs, a tenant-controlled code enforcement board and an anti-demolition law based on some positive West Coast experiences. I also support the bill in the Legislature to toughen penalties against landlord tax dodgers (last year's HB 5189). "The most important step we all can iane is to work with the new group revitalizing the Tenants Union. Only organized tenant militancy has the political power to force substantial changes in city and University policy. Mobilizing that power is the most important element of a rent control strategy. "The HRP day care funding proposa1 (1.7 per cent of the city budget) appearing on the April ballot can be an important step in giving priority to human needs. The 993 Ann Arbor day care spaces do not meet the needs of the 2,400 young people in single-parent families, the 2,100 women in the labor force with children under six, the people in the 1,500 Northwood apartment units that have no day care facility at all. Passage of the day care proposal is critical to meeting needs such as Northwood's, which I regard as an important priority. "Manipulating such "rules of the game" as voter registration has long been a favorite tactic of those in power, especially with such critical votes as rent control and day care cqming up. To insure that voting remains a right, not a privilege, HRP and I have supported with our actions (not just our words) the charter amendment for door-to-door registration. "With the decreases of federal grant money coming into the cities, voters should be especially aware of candidates' priorities for the spending of revenuesharing dollars. These monies will be vital to maintaining a basic level of human services. They should not go to subsidizing commercial interests. "Heajth care is one example of just höw needed these dollars are. Excluding students, Ann Arbor has a miserable rate of one primary-care physician for every 5,100 people, far worse than the national average. The Model Gities Health Center serves 4,000 people a year. The St. Joseph Hospital Walk-In Clinic turns away 100 a week and will be leaving within two years. "Given these figures, and similar ones in other areas of concern, revenue-sharing dollars ought to fund alternative institutions that meet basic needs, and we ought to look for additional sources (such as industrial development revenue bonds) to capitalize other similar projects. "Specific problems demand specific answers, which HRP and I have worked to provide. But we believe it is not enough to simply keep the wheels turning and the trains on time. We see the need for building a movement, a socialist movement, to create a system to meet the needs of people not profits. Shoichet, 25, will graduate in May from the University of Michigan Law School. A past Michigan Democratic Party Political Reform Commission member and Detroit Urban Corps intern, he joined HRP in late 1971. Shoichet served as chairman of the HRP City Committee and as, a member of several steering and campaign committees. He wrote the $5 marijuana fine and preferential voting laws, the proposed ordinance banning housing discrimination against welfare recipients, the rent control and day care funding proposals appearing on the upcoming April ballot, and the HRP indictment resolution for the firing of Police Chief Walter Krasny and City Attorney Ed Pear. In 1973, he was defeated in a bid for the Second Ward seat.