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Chapter 10. Waiting for Gautreaux: The Chicago Public Housing Case, 1950–79
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Chapter 10 Waiting for Gautreaux: The Chicago Public Housing Case, 1950-79 In 1950 Dorothy Gautreaux filed a tenant application with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) because she was, in her own words, "in desperate need of housing." Aware of CHA's policy forbidding her family from living in any project in a white neighborhood because they were black, she agreed to live anywhere to escape the one bedroom her family of three shared with relatives. No help from CHA was forthcoming. By 1953, when she filed another application with CHA, Mrs. Gautreaux stated that she was "in even more desperate need of housing ... because the number of [my] children increased from one to four, and [my] family of six was still occupying one bedroom." In such circumstances Mrs. Gautreaux and her family again agreed to live in any project. CHA assigned the Gautreaux family to a nonwhite project in a blacks-only section of Chicago pursuant to its policy not to assign "B" (i.e., black) families to four projects reserved for "A" (i.e. , white) families. By 1966, however, Dorothy Gautreaux was no longer willing to accept public housing segregation when CHA proposed packing another thirteen hundred units in some twelve new projects in all-black areas but none in white neighborhoods. She was inspired by Martin Luther King's initial marches in Chicago against northern segregation. Dorothy Gautreaux and her compatriots protested the location of new public housing projects in the black ghetto. When federal housing officials responded by supporting CHA, Mrs. Gautreaux and several other plaintiffs filed suit in federal court on August 9, 1966. They challenged CHA's continued policy of deliberately choosing sites so as to avoid the placement of black families in white neighborhoods, thereby forcing black families in need of public housing assistance to reside within "the Negro ghetto." Simultaneously, they filed suit against the responsible HUD agency for supporting CHA's policy and practice of black ghettoization and white protection. Alex Polikoff, a former editor in chief of the Chicago Law Review and an experienced partner in one of Chicago's leading corporate law firms, represented the Gautreaux plaintiffs on a pro bono basis. He framed the two complaints to secure a maximum finding of violation and left detailed consideration of remedy for another day. The two suits were assigned to federal district judge Austin, a former prosecutor with a no-nonsense manner. When Polikoff first explained the basis for the suit, Judge Austin shot back: "Where do you want [me] to put [the CHA projects]? On Lake Shore Drive?" 205 206 Beyond Busing Judge Austin proceeded to postpone consideration of the case against HUD until the suit against CHA was resolved. CHA promptly filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the plaintiffs' own housing applications which expressed a preference for living in projects that happened to be located in black neighborhoods rather than the four CHA projects located in white neighborhoods. The gist of CHA's motion had some appeal: as the named plaintiffs got exactly the housing they requested, they had no standing to complain about the responsiveness of CHA to their wishes; and CHA merely located new projects in response to the demands of the applicants. Dorothy Gautreaux filed a counteraffidavit explaining the circumstances compelling her application and her "willingness" to accept housing in "any project" to which CHA chose to assign her beleaguered family in 1953. Her recognition of CHA's segregation and of her need for shelter did not mean that she approved of CHA's segregative policies. Polikoff also began to investigate whether discriminatory mechanisms caused CHA's blatantly segregated system of project location and tenant assignment. From CHA's former director of research, he learned that from 1946 to 1952 CHA refused to admit Negroes to the four whites-only projects and established a small quota of blacks for other "mixed" projects. CHA's supervisor of tenant selection from 1953 through 1961 confirmed that CHA staff first "steered" all applicants to request housing on a racial basis and then marked the applications "A" for whites and 4'B" for Negroes. She explained that CHA staff never assigned a "B" family to the four whites-only projects without a "specific exemption" from the CHA director. Polikoff also needed to find the discriminatory underpinning of CHA's practice of locating almost all family projects (in contrast to elderly projects) in heavily Negro neighborhoods and locating no family projects in white neighborhoods after 1950. The...