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Show I'ESTEIK SAbTLAKE .MERiCANA neighborhood vxx weekly community news for metro Salt Lake FOR ALL DEPARTMENTS, CALL 467-8014 Published at 383 East 1700 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84115 Mfolume two m - number 'BB"V july 19, 1973 Need For Low Cost Housiqj J3 13j Increases As Rents Soar "''osac,.. With a growing population there is by Tim Funk Mrs. R. T. is a welfare. She has lived her two children, one invalid, at the same several years. It is mother on alone with of them an address for a roomy, and home comfortably adequate Mrs. T. has been happy there. But now she is being forced to move. Her monthly rent of $80 has been raised to $125, a price she says she can't afford. Looking for suitable housing in her price range has been futile for Mrs. T. Such places are becoming more and more scarce everyday. Mrs. T. is not alone. Stories of low income tenants faced with similar astronomical rent increases from $50 to $115, $60 to $95, $100 to $140 and so on are common. Why? Why are rents suddenly so out of sight? There appear to be many reasons why the increases have come, catching low income renters, especially, in a bind. Perhaps the most obvious cause is the soaring cost of everything in the American economy. The national price greater demand for such housing at the same time hundreds of low rent units have disappeared from the local market. Demolished old structures are being replaced by new higher cost apartment complexes and other commerical buildings. Rising prices and the unavailiability of low cost units have made it a "sellers market". The landlord is selling housing and he can set his price. "Landlords are businessmen," freeze, which included rents, held costs down only temporarily. When the freeze was lifted, rents went up like everything else. Landlords were afraid, and still are, that another freeze might be enforced, holding rents at money-losin- g levels. Low income renters usually have no way of filling the gaps between the rent they used to pay and the new inflated prices. Many of them are on welfare like Mrs. T., or on social security or small pensions. Their ability to pay is severely limited. Adding to the predicament is the scarcity of low cost housing. forty-tw- o 0BO explains David Doxey, president of the Apartment House Association, an organization representing apartment owner's interests. As businessmen they must contend with higher tax and utility rates, and with the increasing cost of remodeling, repair, and new construction. This all leads to higher rents according to Mr. s j 5 t j Doxey. Mr. Doxey, a landlord himself, admits there are property owners who are unfair to their tenants. But they are few, he says, in proportion to those who have good working relationships with their renters. While it appears true that most landlords and tenants get along fine, the fact remains that property holder's rights are stronger than the individual renter's rights. Rent can be raised almost arbitrarily with the occupant to take it or leave it. When the low income renter is faced with a short supply of housing, as he is in the existing Salt Lake market, he is up against the wall. In case after case, when rents have been raised on units in the $50 (continued on page 2) ; j |