The Gautreaux Legacy
Gautreaux was the nation’s first public housing
desegregation lawsuit
Two important results:
·
Changed the immediate context for the building
of public housing in
·
Remedies introduced housing mobility, scattered
housing and private management
Background
1954-1967 CHA constructed more than 10,300 public housing
units
·
Only 63 were built outside poor, racially
segregated areas
In 1966, Dorothy Gautreaux, a community organizer and
activist, and three other residents, under the guidance of ACLU lawyers, sued
in federal court
Gautreaux et al. v. CHA alleged that Public housing
violated
·
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
prohibiting racial discrimination in federally funded activities, and
·
American Constitution’s equal protection
guarantee
Important Gautreaux Cases
1969 Gautreaux et al. v. CHA (Federal Judgment Order)
·
Prohibited CHA from constructing new public
housing in areas of the city that were predominantly African-American unless
they built as many in racially diverse areas (in response CHA stopped building
and the waiting list grew to more than 40,000).
·
CHA could no longer build high-rises for
families
·
CHA could not build dense concentrations of
public housing in any neighborhood
·
(Dorothy Gautreaux died just seven months
earlier.)
1976 Hills v.
Gautreaux (Supreme Court Decision)
·
It was upheld that HUD was liable for CHA’s
actions because HUD had funded CHA even though it was aware of CHA’s
discriminatory practices.
·
HUD was required to provide remedies throughout
the
Court Ordered Remedies
“Scattered Site” public housing
Built on a small scale and dispersed in neighborhoods
throughout the city.
·
2,000 units in 57 diverse neighborhoods
·
Took twenty years and a private provider to get
it done
Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program
Eligible families were given rent certificates, or “housing
vouchers,” which they used to pay for private rental apartments in
neighborhoods that were less than 30% African American.
·
1976-1998, 25,000+ moved to more than 100 communities
throughout the
·
People were assigned, didn’t choose apartment
*The program was so popular that in 1984, on the one day
families could enroll, so many showed up they had to cancel registrations
because the police feared they couldn’t control the crowd. By phone, more than 10,000 applicants called
in one day.
-Alex Kotlowitz
Results:
Improvement in employment experience and prospects for
children who moved improved dramatically
·
Children were more likely to graduate from high
school,
·
attend college,
·
attend 4-year colleges,
·
to be employed and to have jobs with better pay
and benefits
·
Families assigned to neighborhoods with more
educated residents were much less likely to receive AFDC
Moving to
Launched in 1994
Experimental design of housing mobility,
Sought to answer the question: What
are the impacts of neighborhood conditions on the employment, income,
education, and social well-being of MTO families?
Applicants were randomly assigned
to three groups
Experimental-Given housing
vouchers for areas with poverty rates of 10% or less
Comparison
– Given Section 8 housing vouchers for any
Control
– not given housing vouchers
Gautreaux used raced-based qualifications to decide eligible
neighborhoods, MTO emphasizes poverty rate
Average applicant is an African-American woman,
37 years old, with 2 or 3 children, almost 1 in 5 works, and 2/3 receive AFDC
Families are motivated to participate by fear of crime
·
Nearly half of MTO applicants reported being the
victims of crime
·
85% listed it as there primary or secondary
reason for moving
·
They were also were motivated by better housing
conditions and better schools
Results:
Beneficial influences on social behavior of boys, physical
health of boys and girls and overall mental health of household heads
·
Less behavior problems among boys
·
Parents report they are less cruel
·
1/3 the arrest rate for teens
·
participants report a greater sense of safety
and psychological well-being
·
fewer injuries and criminal victimizations among
children
·
no clear, significant impact on economic
self-sufficiency
·
positive, but limited, results
The Gautreaux Legacy
1. An
end to racial discrimination in public housing
·
CHA abandoned discriminatory tenant assignment
plan
2. An
end to Public Housing high-rises
3. An
end to backroom political dealing
·
Alderman could no longer use veto power to
prevent construction of public housing in their wards
4. Mixed-Income
Communities
·
Constructed low rise town homes for families
with a broader mix of incomes
5. Private
Management for Public Housing
·
Private management for scatter site housing
6. Expanded
Housing opportunities for public housing families
·
25,000+ people moved to other neighborhoods, the
first housing mobility program
·
Scattered site housing
·
Moving to
When Gautreaux ended,
50 such programs were in place around the country
Gautreaux
is still the largest mobility program
* Legacy of “deconcentration” has become a driving force
behind current ghetto transformations
·
dispersing tenants and
·
creating mixed income developments
*supported a new concept-- the “geography of opportunity”
Some references:
Del Conte, A., & Kling, J. (2000
(?)). A
Synthesis of MTO Resaerch on Self-Sufficiency, Safety
and Health, and Behavior and Delinquency. JCPR
Newsletter, 5(1).
Duncan, G. J., & Ludwig, J.
(2000). Can Housing
Vouchers Help Poor Children. Children's Roundatable,
The Brookings Institution(3).
Popkin, S. J., Buron, L. F., Levy,
D. K., & Cunningham, M. K. (2000). The Gautreaux Legacy: What Might Mixed-Income and Dispersal
Strategies Mean for the Poorest Public Housing Tenants? Housing
Policy Debate, 11(4), 911-942.
Rubinowitz, L. S., & Rosenbaum, J. E.
(2000). Crossing the Class and
Color Lines: From Public Housing to White Suburbia.
Also:
http://www.bpichicago.org/phtcr/gautreaux.html