Proposition 3 assigns part of the higher taxes Proposition 1 provides to help people who need help paying their rent. Unlike current policy for rentcontrolled apartments, which a Rockefeller could find and rent, the benefits allocated under this section will go to applicants based on demonstrated financial need, with preference given to long-time-resident, elderly or homeless citizens of the city.

When a tenant buys his or her own apartment, that does reduce the number of rental units in the city by one. That, quite understandably, upsets my opponents. But the purchase also increases the number of owner-occupied homes, by one. Is that really bad?

OWNING one's own home gives people financial security through saving (paying off the mortage), possible appreciation, income-tax reductions, a better-kept building...and a good old fashioned feeling, called The American Dream.

Is it fair to belittle homeownership by labelling it greed? After all, most existing homeowners in Cambridge do not sell their homes primarily to make money. They sell when they have to, for personal reasons, like moving to a new job. There is no reason to insult tenants who may buy under Proposition 1 by suggesting they will behave any differently from other homeowners. All should be treated equally.

City and state laws already in existence severely punish landlords for harassing tenants out of a rentcontrolled apartment or for demanding anything at all besides the legal rent. It will remain illegal for any landlord even to ask a tenant to buy an apartment before renting it.

My opponents might try to use fear as a weapon against homeownership. But tenants will find they have nothing to fear from the empowerment my proposal will give them. On November 7, what tenants can gain with Proposition 1-2-3 is no less than their home, their security and their freedom.

Fred Meyer, a Cambridge realtor, is one of the authors of Proposition 1-2-3.