Gautreaux Project
Encyclopedia
The Gautreaux Project is a US housing-desegregation
project initiated by court order
. It is notable both for being one of the only social programs based in a randomized experiment
, and the only anti-poverty
housing program endorsed by the Reagan, Bush
, and Clinton
administrations.
lawsuit
Dorothy Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority
(CHA) alleged that the CHA
engaged in racial discrimination
in public housing policy, as prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964
. The lawsuit alleged that the CHA built public housing
solely in areas with high concentrations of poor minorities
, in violation of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines and the Civil Rights Act. The goal of the lawsuit was to begin building public housing
in predominantly white neighborhoods.
HUD entered as a party to the lawsuit, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court
in 1976 as Hills v. Gautreaux
(425 U.S. 284).
In a consent decree
, the court ordered the CHA to provide scattered-site housing for public housing
residents currently residing in isolated public housing projects in concentrated areas of poverty
.
The CHA distributed Section 8
housing vouchers to 7500 African American
families on welfare
in either suburban or urban
locations. The Chicago Housing Authority
designated a day on which Section 8 vouchers are distributed to the first several hundred callers. Applicants were screened by two standards--basic apartment maintenance and lack of a serious criminal record
--and two-thirds of the applicants were accepted. Successful applicants were offered placement in private market apartment units in either city or suburban locations chosen at random by the CHA, and most accepted the placement. The program was intentionally low-profile: only a few participants are moved into each suburb in order to prevent white flight
, and because the residents moved into private units, they had no external markers of being on welfare.
participants started out identical: all were selected from the same pool of callers, and were randomly placed into private apartments in either suburban or urban locations. After several years, the suburban and urban participants had very different outcomes. The urban participants were likely to remain on the welfare
rolls, but their suburban counterparts were very likely to find employment and leave welfare. The urban participants' children were likely to drop out of high school
, but their suburban counterparts are likely to graduate from high school and even college. The program participants' children were initially below the academic level of their classmates, but because only a few families were moved to each suburbs, the suburban teachers could take time with each new child and tutor each child individually until the children were at the same level as their classmates.
The sociologist James Rosenbaum
who studied the Gautreaux project testified before the US Congress on the success of the program, and it has become a model for similar programs in 33 metropolitan areas and inspired the national Moving to Opportunity
(MTO) program.
Some housing departments misinterpreted the results of the Gautreaux project, and used it as justification for emptying and demolishing public housing, as a result of which thousands of public housing residents at a time moved to the same suburbs and overwhelmed the suburbs' resources with urban problems. Gautreaux intentionally moved only a few public housing residents to each suburb to avoid public visibility as well as not overwhelming local infrastructure. Large relocations of public housing residents to the suburbs cause gangs, crime, and poverty to relocate as well. Large numbers of below-grade-level children overwhelm the resources of the suburban teachers, who could not tutor each child individually as they could in the Gautreaux project. If the public housing had been depopulated in a controlled manner, and residents directed to suburbs so that no new
concentrations of poverty were created in the suburbs, the positive results of the Gautreaux project might have held.
Desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
project initiated by court order
Court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case...
. It is notable both for being one of the only social programs based in a randomized experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
, and the only anti-poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
housing program endorsed by the Reagan, Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
, and Clinton
Presidency of Bill Clinton
The United States Presidency of Bill Clinton, also known as the Clinton Administration, was the executive branch of the federal government of the United States from January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001. Clinton was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term...
administrations.
Chronology
The ACLU-initiated 1966 class actionClass action
In law, a class action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued...
lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
Dorothy Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority
Chicago Housing Authority
The Chicago Housing Authority is a municipal corporation established by the State of Illinois in 1937 with jurisdiction for the administrative oversight of public housing within the City of Chicago...
(CHA) alleged that the CHA
Chicago Housing Authority
The Chicago Housing Authority is a municipal corporation established by the State of Illinois in 1937 with jurisdiction for the administrative oversight of public housing within the City of Chicago...
engaged in racial discrimination
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
in public housing policy, as prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
. The lawsuit alleged that the CHA built public housing
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
solely in areas with high concentrations of poor minorities
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
, in violation of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines and the Civil Rights Act. The goal of the lawsuit was to begin building public housing
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
in predominantly white neighborhoods.
HUD entered as a party to the lawsuit, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in 1976 as Hills v. Gautreaux
Hills v. Gautreaux
Hills v. Gautreaux 425 U.S. 284 , was a decision of the United States Supreme Court.In this case, a number of Chicago families living in housing projects were awarded Section 8 vouchers allowing them to move to the suburbs in compensation for the housing project's substandard conditions...
(425 U.S. 284).
In a consent decree
Consent decree
A consent decree is a final, binding judicial decree or judgment memorializing a voluntary agreement between parties to a suit in return for withdrawal of a criminal charge or an end to a civil litigation...
, the court ordered the CHA to provide scattered-site housing for public housing
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
residents currently residing in isolated public housing projects in concentrated areas of poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
.
The CHA distributed Section 8
Section 8 (housing)
Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 , as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households...
housing vouchers to 7500 African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
families on welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
in either suburban or urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
locations. The Chicago Housing Authority
Chicago Housing Authority
The Chicago Housing Authority is a municipal corporation established by the State of Illinois in 1937 with jurisdiction for the administrative oversight of public housing within the City of Chicago...
designated a day on which Section 8 vouchers are distributed to the first several hundred callers. Applicants were screened by two standards--basic apartment maintenance and lack of a serious criminal record
Criminal record
A criminal record is a record of a person's criminal history, generally used by potential employers, lenders etc. to assess his or her trustworthiness. The information included in a criminal record varies between countries and even between jurisdictions within a country...
--and two-thirds of the applicants were accepted. Successful applicants were offered placement in private market apartment units in either city or suburban locations chosen at random by the CHA, and most accepted the placement. The program was intentionally low-profile: only a few participants are moved into each suburb in order to prevent white flight
White flight
White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...
, and because the residents moved into private units, they had no external markers of being on welfare.
Results
The suburban and urbanUrban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
participants started out identical: all were selected from the same pool of callers, and were randomly placed into private apartments in either suburban or urban locations. After several years, the suburban and urban participants had very different outcomes. The urban participants were likely to remain on the welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
rolls, but their suburban counterparts were very likely to find employment and leave welfare. The urban participants' children were likely to drop out of high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
, but their suburban counterparts are likely to graduate from high school and even college. The program participants' children were initially below the academic level of their classmates, but because only a few families were moved to each suburbs, the suburban teachers could take time with each new child and tutor each child individually until the children were at the same level as their classmates.
The sociologist James Rosenbaum
James Rosenbaum
James Rosenbaum is a Professor of Sociology, Education, and Social Policy at Northwestern University.He is most well known for his study of the Gautreaux Project the Chicago housing desegregation program which led to the federal Moving to Opportunity program, and for his work on improving...
who studied the Gautreaux project testified before the US Congress on the success of the program, and it has become a model for similar programs in 33 metropolitan areas and inspired the national Moving to Opportunity
Moving to Opportunity
Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing is a program sponsored by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development which gives Section 8 housing vouchers to low-income families and gives them counseling and assistance to help them move to low-poverty neighborhoods with better...
(MTO) program.
Some housing departments misinterpreted the results of the Gautreaux project, and used it as justification for emptying and demolishing public housing, as a result of which thousands of public housing residents at a time moved to the same suburbs and overwhelmed the suburbs' resources with urban problems. Gautreaux intentionally moved only a few public housing residents to each suburb to avoid public visibility as well as not overwhelming local infrastructure. Large relocations of public housing residents to the suburbs cause gangs, crime, and poverty to relocate as well. Large numbers of below-grade-level children overwhelm the resources of the suburban teachers, who could not tutor each child individually as they could in the Gautreaux project. If the public housing had been depopulated in a controlled manner, and residents directed to suburbs so that no new
concentrations of poverty were created in the suburbs, the positive results of the Gautreaux project might have held.