Feature
April 6, 2010
Home is Where...
Starting in the mid-1950s, the Chicago Housing Authority constructed more than 10,000 public housing units throughout the city. But when less than 100 of those were built outside poor, racially segregated areas, community organizer and activist Dorothy Gautreaux sued in federal court alleging that the program violated racial discrimination laws.
The result fueled a series of desegregation programs in Chicago—titled Gautreaux 1 and 2—that moved thousands of families in public housing (or on waiting lists) to "opportunity neighborhoods" where they could receive better education and more chances for economic growth. Keeping those people from moving back to poor neighborhoods, it turned out, was a lot easier said than done.
As the second installment of the Urban Policy Speaker Series, Katheryn Edin, Professor of Public Policy and Management at Harvard University, explored some of the setbacks this new approach to public housing has encountered. Held April 1, the Harris School event was moderated by E. Hoy McConnell II, executive director of Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, and featured University of Chicago discussants Kathleen Cagney (from the Population Research Center) and Stephen Raudenbush (from the Department of Sociology).
In her lecture, “Navigating Social Space: Lessons from Chicago's Gautreaux Mobility Program,” Edin showed how a number of bureaucratic and housing market challenges affected the Gautreaux programs. In addition to onerous participation requirements, she found that limited family-size houses (which were preferred over apartments), poor unit conditions, distance from pre-established social networks, and an increased poverty stigma were all major factors that prevented the ongoing participation of many voucher recipients.
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