Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 87

(Thicaso (Tribune Thursday. May 14, 1981 Section 6 organizing Tenants st Mcrt mm tm ssnr trend hat come to a screeching halt. Many of those who have failed to acquire a home already can expect to spend the. rest of their lives as tenants. These children of middle-class homeowners are troubled by the sense of powerlessness and lusecuiky that comes with renting.

Their frustrations have triggered this round of tenant activism." At the conference, Dreier called tenant unions "umbrella groups" of neighborhood organizations. The citywide or tr, ill 1 1 11 -S cerning condom iniu conversion. "Unless there's some kind of tenants lobby, the legislature fa only going to hear one side of that questkat-the real estate Kaplan said. In the conference audience was Ted Amdur, chairman of Shelter II, a real estate group. Amdur said he attended the conference to observe Shelter H's position to that the' free market should be allowed to operate real estate, Amdur said.

He realises that system "sometimes creates imbalances" and that "people are frustrated." "We are sympathetic to people's problems," he said. "We are not without feeling." BUT TENANT UNIONS are not the answer, he said. "New housing to not created in areas with -tenant unionism and rent control," he said. "The logical extension of tenant unionism and rent control fa the discouraging of investment 'People will invest elsewhere or in other things. By default the government has to come in and then pretty som everyone vanilla housing." v.

Atlas and Dreier are "false messiahs," Amdur said. The imbalance in the free-market system could be corrected by "developing bousing policies that encourage private investment and discourage legislation that will hinder the free market," he said. He would like to speed up the procedures for approving a building eliminate restrictive zoning, establish limited-equity co-operatives for the poor, and offer refinancing and tax incentives to owners of buildings that house low-and moderate-income people. AMDUR ALSO favors proposed congressional legislation to cut off housing subsidies for cities that have rent control. The National Tenants Union fa lobbying against the bill, "Dont confuse the moment-to-moment issue of someone without a place to live with the long-term issues," Amdur said.

"That's malarkey, Atlas said in an interview. "Private enterprise baa abandoned the building of tow- and moderate-income housing, with or without tenant organizing. People dont organize because tbey want to. They do it because they have to. The tenant has no choice but to protect what he has." Atlas said he does not favor or government-owned tag.

"We've seen what they do to, not for, people," he said. But, he added, he favors more government involvement in establishing "new entrepreneurs," such aa co-operatives, and community non- profit organizations. THE CONFERENCE spent mere tune on the nuts-and-bolts of organizing a citywide union than it did on the philosophy of the unions. The National Tenants Union, with a membership of about SO tenant groups in 22 states, win give the city's organizers advice, help draft legislation, and share organizing strategies, said. i "Chicago, with a majority of tenants in its population, doesnt have a voice that speaks just for tenants," Atlas said.

"It's one of te most organized cities in the country, what with all its community groups, but not one group to speak for all" Among the pointers that Atlas, Dreier, and others offered was the advice that a tenants group be democratic. "It's important to the organization but it's important symbolically, too," Atlas said. "How can we demand democracy if we dont practice it?" Some issues are less attractive than others. "It's hard to organize around con-do conversions," Dreier said. "Not everyone fa mad about them at the same time.

We had to organize tenants on several issues because otherwise you divide tenants. We've tried to develop the theory that tenants interested hvcondo conversion as an issue also- have to work on Continued on page a Current legal rights of tenants in Chicago Tenants are entitled to live In a habitable premise that meets the building code. the apartment Is In violation, a tenant can withhold part of his rent. Teiianfe cannot be olscrimlnslrt marital status. A stats law says landlords cannot refuse to rent to a family simply because Jies children under the age of 14.

Tenants cannot be evicted wttrut opporturfcy for a court trial. AsattolswsaysallordcaiTOtevictatsna about buHdkig code violations. A tenant can pay a utility bill and deduct the amount from his rent rf the landlord has not paid the bW and the tenant is si danger of losing service. Landlords with mure titan 25 units must pay 5 per cent per year Interest on security deposits (dose not apply to Chicago Housing Authority). Landlords who own property with 10 or mom units must return tm security deposit within 30 days after the tenant moves out the landlord withholds part of the deposit, he must give the tenant receipts for repair work necessitated by damage caused by the tenant racerve 120 days' notice of a landlord's intent to convert a building to condominiums.

A landlord cannot raise rent during the term of a fixed-rent lease, and the tenant cannot be evicted unless he has breached the lease. i He said organizations should be aware that when they start out, they will have a hard time "getting the message out" "GOOD REPORTERS don't boy that (smoke and mirrors) stuff," Atlas said. "It's sot something I consider important There's no way you're going to fool people about your strength at election time." And what did the conference organizers think about Atlas' suggestions for getting publicity? "I think we've got plenty to go on with accurate information and statistics to show how significant the problems of tenants are," said Jack Kaplan of the Rogers Park Tenants Committee, one of the organizers. "You don't have to exaggerate. If I want press and I do-all I have to offer the press is my integrity.

I'm not going to blow that" Stevenson Swanson Graphic; Soura: Ltgal ANttanot Fbunditton of CNmqs 'news' by playing with mirrors By Stevenson Swanson A UBIQUITOUS SLOGAN fai Chlcage 'neighborhoods that have active community group and then art1 many such aelghbortoods fa "Dont agonize, or- It fa written on placards tacked to the walla of the low-rent offices of neighborhood organizations, printed on the mastheads of communit newsletters and even painted on the wall outside the Jane Addams Center on Broadway. Yet the slogan has been applied only to neighborhoods, not to the whole city. One national authority on community organizing, John Atlas of the National Tenants Union, calls Chicago "one of the most organized cities in the country," but be points out that the groups have stuck to their own business in their own neighborhoods, unable or unwilling to band, together to work for common goals. NOW THAT IS changing. Chicago's tenants are forming a citywide organization to represent their interests.

Early this month, 250 persons from throughout the city, meeting in an unprecedented tenants conference at Chicago Kent College of Law, voted overwhelmingly to estab- bah a Chicago tenants union. A steering committee of about 20 persons who attended the' conference fa expected to meet later in the month to decide bow to organize the group, how to raise money to run it, and what issues it should stress. "The interest fa there," said Jack Kaplan, a member of the Rogers Park Tenants Committee and one of the organizers of the conference. "If the energy of the conference continues, don't think there's any doubt that there will be a viable tenants organization in Chicago very soon." The conference voted to establish a union after hearing the success stories of tenant organizers front around the country. "WE'RE IN THE midst of the worst housing crisis since the Depression," Atlas toki the conference, citing soaring rents, condominium conversions, deteriorating housing, and arbitrary evictions.

"We're, not going to solve the crisis if we rely on the bankers, the speculators, the real estate operators, the slumlords. They caused the problem in the first place. We're going to have to rely on ourselves, the consumers of housing. We're going to nave to go on offensive." "Tenants are just like any other disenfranchised group, like minorities and women," Kaplan said later. "They have to develop a group identity.

Tenants have to convince their aldermen and the rnay- or that they vote and that they can get rid of them. Tenants are faced with conditions that are no longer acceptable. You can be thrown out of only so many buildings." AiliuC one of the country's leading advocates of tenant organizations, predicted that the organizations will become in- lncome Americans, the most important political bloc, are Joining the elderly and the poor in a class of "life-long" tenants. "UNTIL RECENTLY, most tenants viewed themselves as heme on a way station toward howeownership," be and another tenant proponent, Peter Dreier of "Tufts Unlverity, wrote last year in an article in the Washington Post. "But the Washroom By Jerry Crimmins A LETTER wrttlag campaign that In-eluded letters to United States senators, the governor, the mayor, and a host of other government officials, combined with a petition drive, has persuaded the Chicago Transit Authority to pull Um plug os) ttsplan to build a washroom at Clark and Wisconsin streets.

the washroom, which was to be locked and used only by bus drivers who park in the bus turnaround there, will not be built at this time, said CTA spokesman Bill Baxa. "The whole project fa being held in, abeyance. gotten a lot of flack from aaidBasa. Aa a result, bus drivers whose routes eonter on Clark and Wisconsin will have to continue to find a gas tatlon or restaurant or whatever fa convenient. THE PROPOSED stractare would have measured is by 20 feet and 9vi feet tall.

Made of brick, It would have housed two toflsts, ons for each sex; a janitor's closet; and an electrical closet Only CTA personnel would have bad keys. Baxa described the proposal as "a nice, neat Jack Kaplan: "Tenants are faced with conditions that are no longer statewide organisations help their member groups do better jobs in their neighborhoods and lobby for issues of common concern, he said. "Local politics fa the politics of real estate," Atlas told one conference work-, shop. "The real estate industry has money and they're well-organized. But you have people.

The question Is whether yon can organise across race and economic lines. Look at It like a trade union. Where they want higher wages, you want stable rents." ATLAS OFFERED the New Jersey Tenants Organization, which be helped found, as' one example of a successful group. One year after Its establishment, the state passed a law outlawing retaliat-, ory evictions. After four years, the state had passed, at the organization's insistence, a tenants' bill of rights, and about 100 towns had a fair rent law.

Among the items on the bill of rights are the rightv not to be evicted without just cause, the right to know, who owns the building, as well as who supervises it and who holds the mortgage, and the right to interest earned on a security deposit Also, the group won proval of a condom tnium -con version law that requires owners to give tenants a three-year notice. Atlas was loudly ap-. plauded when he described the law. But a tenant organization should do more than just lobby for favorable tenant laws, Atlas said. The New Jersey organization pushes for pro-tenant appointments to the local rent boards, monitors landlord-tenant court, and screens politl-.

cal candidates. "We got rid of one particularly outrageous judge," Atlas said. "Gubernatorial candidates seek our support." IN THE CAMPAIGN for a fair rent law in Massachusetts, the statewide tenants group "organized the hell out of tenants, especially in Boston," Dreier said. He passage of the legislation fa now almost certain. "We created the momentum so that officials figured tbey wouldn't be elected if they voted against us," Dreier said.

Kaplan said a tenants union fa needed In Illinois to lobby against a bttt in the state legislature that would prohibit niunteipaLties from adopting laws con plan goes building, not an outhouse." To erect this small building, the CTA was going to pay (80,000. Although the price raised some eyebrows, money was not the prime concern of the opponents. The opponents fett that the bus turnaround is bad for the rieighborhood, and a turnaround with a toilet would bo even more so. Ths turnaround is a square plot of land cut in half diagonally by a driveway. It is on the north aide of Wisconsin where Wisconsin meets Clark, across the street from Lmcoln Park and "The Farm in the ZOO." iv: THE SQUARE was eace irspsssl fsr use as a tiny park, said one opponent of the restroom, Diana Kurien.

Instead, the city's Department of Urban Renewal leased the land to the CTA several years Opponents In the upper middle class rMkiential neighborhood said that fumes from the bus engines pollute the air and the noise wakes people at a.m. Beverly Bock, who lives on the 6th floor of the Hemingway House condominium directly south of tie turnaround, said the fumos are worst in the winter when the f-f vM- WSl S5 IffffiW-j Wm -fjfe Making WHEN AN ORGANIZATION fa jost starting out, one of its most important challenges fa making its name known. One of the best ways to do that fa to get the name In the newspapers. But how? A few years ago, the fledgling New Jersey Tenants Organization solved the problem by beginning all its press releases, "The 800,000 member New Jersey Tenants organization said today At the time, the group was lucky to have SO members, but many newspapers printed the releases because, of course, any organization with a half-million members must be important "The appearance of power is often more important than the reality of power," said John Atlas, a founder of the New Jersey group. Atlas told bis story to the first citywide tenants conference In Chicago recently as part of his presentation on starting a tenants union.

The conference voted to establish what could become Chicago's first lobbying group for its 1.5 million tenants. buses are left running for warmth. Other opponents argue that since Wisconsin is off limits to trucks, buses should also be kept out But the washroom Idea really stirred BOCK. REPEATING the argawsts of other opponents, said she feared ths toilet would be used by the general public because people would just break in. Not all the neighbors, however, are opposed to the bus turnaround or the of a toilet for drivers there.

ARNIE MATANKY, pabUshsr ef the Nest North News, Uvea only a few doors way at 1920 N. Clark. "I think driven have to have some place to relieve themselves," laid Matanky. He added he thought the turnaround was great con veniencs" because be can catch a bus for several different routes from the same pot exponent Kurien had the last word, for ths present. "It's absolutely incongruous she said.

"They want to build a 980,000 toilet whan the CTA and the RTA are going down the down drain MOST OF ATLAS' pointers were non-controversial suggestions about developing lobbying campaigns and choosing leaders, but his approach to the news media, an approach he has dubbed "smoke and mirrors," called for "exaggerating things at the beginning to give tenants a sense that something fa out there for them, which becomes self-fulfilling." Atlas told his "smoke and mirror" stories to an audience of about 250 people. Including several reporters, His organization, which wanted to dramatize rising rents, decided when it was still young to call a rent strike for the entire state, he said. But rational minds prevailed, arguing that the group was too small to carry out such a strike and that a failure would only make the union look bad. Instead, the union decided to tell ten-nts to send in their rent checks three days late, because, as Atlas said, "Tenants pay their rent late anyway." So, as Circus train is due here By Robert Davis RESIDENTS OF southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois will get a preview of the Great Chicago Circus Parade, set for May 24, when a train carrying more than 40 circus wagons travels from Baraboo, to Chicago on May 19. Thomas Drilias, head of Festivals, the consulting firm hired by the city to stage the circus parade, said the flatbed train will leave Baraboo at 5:80 a.m.

May 19 and will travel slowly over the Chicago and North Western railroad tracks through many Wisconsin and Illinois cities, arriving in Chicago at 4 p.m. The colorful circus wagons are coming from the Circus World Museum in Baraboo and will be featured in the Great Circus Parade, to be held on North Michigan Avenue and through Grant Park beginning at 2 p.m. May 24, part of the Memorial Pay weekend. THE TWO-HOUR parade will feature a herd of elephants, wild animals, about 400 horses, and more than 600 people in circus garb. "It will be a grand, glorious, and gate free circus parade, just like the ones last seen in Chicago at the turn of the century," Drilias said.

The 40 circus wagons will be on display on the train flatbed cars along the train route, and also will be on display at Navy Pier from noon to 9 p.m. on May 21. 22, and 22, be said. That display also will be free to the public. Drilias said ho expects the 4v-mDe parade route to be lined with hundreds of thousands of spectators.

THE CIRCUS parade la betag spoa sored by the City of Chicago, with the cooperation of the Circus World Museum arid William Schultithe museum director. r. Chicago's circus parade fa patterned after similar circus events held Milwaukee during the 1970s. SchuKi said the circus wagons arc au-' thentic rapUcas of such vehicles exhibited In hfatdrie parades. long as tenants wen late with their -rent, whether they bad beard of the tenant group or not, the group could take credit for their tardiness.

A FEW YEARS later, the group released a statement that said a survey had discovered that a large percentage of apartments did not have smoke detectors, which are required by law. Atlas told the conference that the "scientific" survey had been conducted by calling a few leaders of the tenants union. i--, "You have to be pragmatic," Atlas said. "We'll do almost anything to win." That attitude fa necessary, he said, because the opposition, the real estate industry, also will do almost anything to make its point. When questioned later, AUas said his "smoke and mirror" remarks were "more for humor than to be taken serir ously." "It will be our museum masterpiece spread out over the streets of Chicago," Schutts said.

Festivals, also stages ChlcagoF-est, Taste of Chicago, and Autumn Fair for the c(ty. MOUNTED TRUMPETERS, will lead an army of clowns, circus animals, and costumed horsemen in the parade, which begin and end at Ohio Street and Michigan Avenue. The steam calliope "America" will bring up the rear The calliope's wagon was built for the Barnum 4 Bailey Circus tn 1908, and converted to a calliope by the Cole Bros. Circus la 1940. Also In the parade will be "Big Tommy," who weighs I tons and fa said to be the world's largest performing elephant; the Swan Bandwagon, which led Rlngling Bros, parades from 1905 to 1910, with Ed Chicago Big Show Band performing; Walter L.

Main's Vaulting Performers Wagon, featuring three genera tions oi umversxy of Wisconsin gymnas-tic coaches; and a wood-carvedanimsl cage wagon built in 1881 by the Barnum, Hutcninaon circus. The parade fa estimated to take about IV i hours to pass a point along ths routs. In case of ram, the psrade.will be held on Memorial Day, May 25. 1 Circus train route rr-: VCI-V jTra.n.tows.totth I station but (toes not stop I Chicago Circus Parade route i cd czzs 'SS 1 -Hz pTSB Wacker V4 h8 HTri if L-J 1 'J Monro; Ll -gSC3! 1 Jackson tn VTT i (cincage Trlbuna Map 3.