Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority

1. Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority And its subsequent opinions

2. Count I Defendants CHA intentionally chose sites for family public housing and adopted tenant assignment procedures in violation of 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1983 for the purpose of maintaining existing patterns of residential separation of races in Chicago Count II Same allegation in Count I, but plaintiffs black tenants or applicants demand relief under section 601 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Allegations

3. Allegations Count III Regardless of their intentions, defendants CHA violated 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1983 by failing to select family public housing sites in such locations as would alleviate existing patterns of residential separation. Count IV Same allegation in Count III, but plaintiffs black tenants or applicants demand relief under section 601 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)

4. District Court decision, March 1967 • Plaintiffs have the right under the Fourteenth Amendment to have sites selected for public housing projects without regard to the racial composition of either the surrounding neighborhood or of the projects themselves. • This Court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss Counts I and II and granted the motion as to Counts III and IV

5. District Court, Feb. 1969 (subsequent opinion) • Both parties moved for summary judgment on Counts I and II where Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is granted on Count I, but denied as to both on Count II. • Finding there is discriminatory tenant assignment practices • Black families in the projects vs. number of black applicants • CHA officials’ testimony • Finding there is discriminatory site selection procedures • Statistics on the family housing sites during the five major programs show a very high probability that many sites were vetoed on the basis of racial composition of the site’s neighborhood • CHA officials’ intent

6. Discriminatory site selection procedures

7. District Court, July 1969 (subsequent order) • This Court determined that several provisions of this judgment order are necessary to prohibit future use and to remedy the past effects of the CHA’s unconstitutional site selection and tenant assignment procedures, to the end that plaintiffs shall have the full equitable relief.

8. The 1969 Judgment Order • Divided the County of Cook on the basis of census tracts into two areas: the Limited Public Housing Area and the General Public Housing Area. • Mandated that CHA to • use its best efforts to increase the supply of family public housing units as rapidly as possible; • not commence construction of any family public housing units without first beginning construction of 700 units in the General Public Housing Area (defined as both 70% or more white and not within one mile of a census tract 30% or more non-white); • locate 75% of all future family public housing units beyond the 700 units in the General Public Housing Area; • cease discrimination on the basis of race; and • limit the size of new public housing projects and their concentration with other CHA projects

9. Gautreaux v. Romney, Secretary of the HUD, Court of Appeals, Sept. 1971 • The complaint in this case was filed simultaneously with the complaint in the Gautreaux v. CHA, an order of the District Court stayed all proceedings in this suit until disposition of the companion CHA case. • District Court dismissed the complaint against Secretary of HUD • This Court remanded the case holding that the case was not moot and that the HUD did violate the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because HUD knowingly acquiesced to CHA’s unconstitutional procedures.

10. Gautreaux v. Landrieu, Secretary of the HUD, District Court, June 1981 • Since continuous litigation, plaintiffs have yet to realize any relief • A proposed consent decree, negotiated between plaintiffs and HUD is now before this court for approval • This Court held that the proposed consent decree was permissibly negotiated and did not impermissibly intrude HUD’s authority

11. The Proposed Consent Decree • Provided for metropolitan relief by dividing the city into three areas according to percentage of minority population: General, Limited and Revitalizing. • General Area = predominantly non-minority • Limited Area = predominantly minority • Revitalizing = substantial minority occupancy and undergoing physical development

12. Some highlight provisions • HUD will provide assisted housing until the number of occupancies in the General Area and/or in the Revitalizing Area equals 7,100 (sec. 5.1) • Each year in addition to the fair share of Section 8 units annually allocated to the Chicago SMSA, HUD must set aside additional funding authority for • 150 units of Section 8 Existing Housing units; • 250 Section 8 New Construction and/or Substantial Rehabilitation units to be located in the General Area or in the Revitalizing Area • 100 units “that will increase housing choice for large minority families” • HUD will make available at least $3,000,000 Grant to aid in providing assisted housing outside the Limited Area for eligible persons living in the Limited Area. • HUD may not permit more than 1/3 of these Existing Housing Units and of New Construction units within the city of Chicago to be located in the Limited Area. HUD may not permit less than 1/3 of such housing to be located in the General Area.

13. Court of Appeals, Sept. 1982 (subsequent opinion) • This Court affirmed District Court that the decree was not unreasonable and was not in violation of the fair housing laws • The consent decree does not violate statutes and regulations governing HUD because the regulations gave HUD express discretion with respect to application of its fund. • No evidence that the negotiations leading to the proposed decree was irregular. • The district court, in approving the decree, expressed the desire to see the development of safe, clean public housing which not only provides relief to plaintiffs, but furthers integrated living and urban development.

14. District Court, Aug. 1997(memorandum opinion and order) • Low income renters moved to modify judgment order against CHA. • This Court held that • Judgment requiring that low income housing be constructed according to formula, in order to avoid segregation, would not be modified since there is no evidence that the existing program was not working. It just takes time. • HUD’s obligation to set aside units for low income renters for following fiscal year, under consent decree, was extinguished because HUD reached the 7100 target. • Trial Court would not enforce provision of consent decree, calling for HUD to withhold approval of low income rental funding unless units subsidized were located in specified areas of city, due to failure to timely protest noncompliance in prior years

15. Facts about “Housing Vouchers” • HUD’s Section 8 tenant-based rental subsidy programs (“housing vouchers”) provide low-income families with a financial subsidy if they move to a private-market apartment or house that meets certain program requirements. • Around 1.6 million low-income families receive housing vouchers.

16. The Gautreaux Programby Sociologist James Rosenbaum • Generated a sample of Chicago public-housing residents who were essentially randomly assigned to both city and suburban neighborhoods. • A comparison across groups suggested that compared with children who had moved to other parts of the city of Chicago, families who moved to white suburbs experienced significant socioeconomic improvement, with children evincing lower dropout rates (5 vs. 20%), higher rates of college attendance (54 vs. 21%), and higher rates of employment. Adults also achieved higher rates of employment, improved incomes and lower levels of welfare dependency. • As a result, a five-city demonstration project or “Moving to Opportunity” (MTO) was formed to formally test the Gautreaux hypothesis.

17. Moving to Opportunity Experiment • 600 families with children living in public housing within the five cities’ worst neighborhoods volunteered for the program • Randomly assigned to one of the three groups • Experimental: received housing vouchers that enabled them to relocate to private-market housing only in very low-poverty neighborhoods + counseling in basic life skills and relocation assistance • Section 8-only comparison: received housing vouchers with no restriction on relocation choices + no additional counseling or relocation assistance • Control: no assistance through MTO • Evaluation surveyed families prior to the offer of vouchers, kept track of subsequent moves, and surveyed participants at an interim point 4-7 years after households were randomly assigned.

18. Early Impact Estimates from HUD’s MTO Demonstration

21. Racial Composition does matter • Minority areas are more disadvantaged in social and economic terms than non-minority areas and are more likely to experience social and economic decline over time. • Even when the experimental compliers relocated to non-poor neighborhoods, if these neighborhoods were segregated, they would be exposed to a more disadvantageous environment than if integrated. • Given that nearly ¾ of those using MTO vouchers moved to a segregated rather than integrated neighborhood, a simple comparison of experimental and control group biases the assessment of neighborhood effects downward

22. Criticism • Selective acquiescence to the experimental manipulation: • No guarantee that families will actually use the voucher • Of 1,723 subjects, only 814 (47%) accepted the offer and moved • The neighborhood circumstances experienced by different groups are thus not significantly different • Selective out-migration: • No requirement to remain in the new neighborhood to experience the advantages • By the 4th year, percentage of families residing in integrated non-poor neighborhoods dropped from 28% to 21%, 72% to 46% in non-poor segregated neighborhoods • Most of the out-migration was to poor, segregated neighborhoods

23. Selection Bias • Selection into the population of experimental compliers were highly selective • younger, lived in smaller households, enrolled in school, inhabited an integrated neighborhood, and more dissatisfied with their current neighborhood conditions • Choice of integration vs. segregation was highly selective • older, better educated non-African Americans, not on welfare, and not owning a car • Having friends in the neighborhood and degree of confidence in finding an apartment deterred people from relocating to an integrated area • Mobility subsequent to initial relocation was selective and path dependent • Those whose initial moves were to integrated, non-poor were much more likely to live in a low poverty neighborhood 4 years later, and were markedly more likely to remain in an integrated setting • The factor that affect subsequent location is neighborhood circumstances at baseline

24. Alternative analytic strategy • Measured the cumulative amount of time spent in different kinds of neighborhood (high poverty, low-poverty segregated, and low-poverty integrated) • Measured the influence of variables known to affect selection into categories of compliance, entry into integrated vs. segregated areas, and out-migration • Included these measures in statistical models predicting employment, earnings, and service dependency

25. Findings • Employment • Exposure to a non-poor environment is important, not whether the neighborhood contained many or few minorities • Accumulating time in an integrated non-poor neighborhood appears to be slightly more beneficial, though the difference between the two coefficients is not statistically significant • Weekly earnings • Each additional month spent in an integrated non-poor neighborhood raises slightly more weekly earnings than in segregated non-poor neighborhood • Temporary Assistance for Needly Families (TANF) + food stamps • The more time spent in low-poverty area, the lower the odds of food stamp receipt by the time of the interim assessment • Living in an integrated low poverty neighborhood had the greatest effect in reducing dependency

26. If experimental compliers actually spend more time…

27. Final Conclusion • Neighborhood effects develop over time, progressively unfolding with rising exposure to the opportunities, resources, and improved circumstances offered by low poverty neighborhoods • Although all subjects show a rising probability of employment over time, rate of change is more rapid among those moving into integrated low-poverty neighborhood • As cumulative exposure to advantageous neighborhood conditions increases, a gap progressively opens up between experimental and control subjects

28. Criticism of Neighborhood Research • The random assignment of housing vouchers does not address causal processes of why neighborhoods matter. When MTO families relocate in a non-poor neighborhood, many variables change at once, making it difficult to disentangle the change in neighborhood poverty from simultaneous changes in social processes • MTO does not randomly allocate neighborhood conditions to participants; voucher recipients can choose to live in any middle-class neighborhood conditions. • Difficult to explain contextual effects on individual families and individual differences in behavior

29. What this all means… • The normative aim of litigation and consent decree is two-fold. It is designed to address Defendants’ constitutional violations and to materially improve the lives of Plaintiffs and families in similarly situated families • What the consent decree successfully achieved is to stop the Defendants’ discriminatory acts on the basis of race • Whether or not the consent decree actually makes a material improvement in people’s lives is questionable. Nevertheless, expanding housing voucher programs to offer more public housing residents the opportunity to relocate would improve the life chances of many poor families more or less.