2026 City Council Tenants’ Questionnaire

In July 2026, organizers from the Ann Arbor Tenants Union and the Huron Valley Democratic Socialists of America's Tenant Bill of Rights campaign distributed a candidate questionnaire ahead of this year’s Democratic primary race in Ann Arbor, inspired by other surveys like those run by Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Walk Bike Washtenaw, and Neighbors for More Neighbors.

The questions were as follows:

1. What do you view as the primary obstacle to solving Ann Arbor’s affordability crisis?
2. During your term as councilmember [4 years], what would you as councilmember propose to increase housing affordability in Ann Arbor?
3. What steps do you propose to help tenants advocate for themselves to improve their living conditions?
4. How should the city incentivize increasing the supply of more low-cost housing?
5. Spaces that have been marketed as “affordable” have also sat vacant for long periods of time such as Legacy Apartments owned by Landmark. What would you do differently with Legacy and how can you prevent that from happening again?

Disclaimer: The Ann Arbor Tenants Union is not a neutral party. Our beliefs can be summarized in that we are pro-tenants-rights, pro-regulation of landlords, and believe above all else that renters hold the power to our own victory in our fight for dignified housing (we need not wait on the benevolence of politicians). We support strong and swift action from elected officials in that pursuit. We have also endorsed candidates this year already; see here.

We gave candidates until July 24, 2026 to respond to the questionnaire. We are grateful for everyone’s speedy (yet still very thoughtful) responses.

Publishing a candidate’s answers is not an endorsement.