Failed CHA Program Moves Familes to Racially Segregated, Poor Neighborhoods

In the wake of celebrations honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, three prominent advocacy organizations filed a civil rights lawsuit today charging that the Chicago Housing Authority’s relocation program moved thousands of families to overwhelmingly black and poor neighborhoods. The lawsuit alleges that CHA failed to provide adequate relocation assistance and effective social services to families displaced by public housing demolition, in violation of both federal law and CHA’s contractual obligations. The lawsuit, filed by the National Center on Poverty Law, the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, seeks prompt implementation of a program to give relocating families the support they need to make the kinds of moves they desire.

“CHA’s relocation program has failed. Instead of offering families a better chance, the housing authority has perpetuated segregation,” said William Wilen, supervising attorney at the Center.

The lawsuit is brought on behalf of current and former CHA residents who were moved or will be moved as a result of CHA demolition. The defendants are CHA and its Chief Executive Officer Terry Peterson.

Under CHA’s Plan for Transformation, more than 3,200 families have been forced to move from CHA buildings slated for demolition. CHA entered into legally binding agreements promising to help displaced families move to neighborhoods that are more racially and economically integrated than the ones from which they have been displaced, and CHA resident leaders agreed to the plan based on these promises. But the lawsuit alleges that CHA’s failed relocation process has produced the opposite result, and, unless changed as plaintiffs propose, will continue to do so.

In fact, displaced CHA residents now live in neighborhoods that are just as racially segregated and nearly as poor as the communities from which they were forced to move, according to a study by Dr. Paul Fischer, a public housing expert who is a professor at Lake Forest College. The study was commissioned by the Center. Dr. Fischer analyzed data on the more than 3,200 families CHA forced to relocate with Housing Choice (Section 8) Vouchers between 1995 and 2002.

Fischer’s study, entitled “Where are the Public Housing Families Going? An Update,” shows that almost 83 percent of CHA relocatees moved to neighborhoods that were at least 90 percent African American. Additionally, nearly 50 percent of relocatees moved to “high poverty” neighborhoods, which social scientists define as those where 30 percent or more of residents are below the poverty line. By contrast, a recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development study found that nationwide well over 50 percent of participants in the Housing Choice Voucher program live in neighborhoods with a poverty concentration below 20 percent. “These vouchers can pay for good apartments in neighborhoods where CHA families want to live—they just need help to take advantage of those units,” said Wilen.

While some families moved to neighborhoods that were marginally better than the terrible ones from which they were moved, many relocatees say that their new neighborhoods are still characterized by high crime, poor services, failing schools and crumbling housing.

CHA families forced to move are entitled to a real choice about where to live. “Many families want to move to neighborhoods that offer greater opportunity, that are more integrated, and that are much less poor than the public housing developments they’re tearing down. CHA must give families the help they need to make such moves. That’s what CHA has promised to do and that’s what the law requires,” said Alexander Polikoff, senior staff counsel at Business and Professional People for the Public Interest.

Between 1995 and 1997, CHA provided virtually no assistance to families forced to find new homes. Since 1997, CHA has operated a relocation program, but the lawsuit describes many ways in which the program failed. Agencies hired by CHA to assist relocating residents overwhelmingly showed relocatees apartments in high-poverty, predominantly African American neighborhoods, and frequently refused requests for assistance to move to racially and economically integrated communities.

“Relocation counselors are not advising residents that they can move to any part of the city and the suburbs; instead, they’re pushing residents to neighborhoods like Roseland, Englewood, South Shore and Lawndale, and into housing units that are often as bad as the public housing units they left,” said Clyde Murphy, executive director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, also a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“I want to wake up one day and have a white neighbor on one side of my house and a Hispanic on the other. I want my children to attend good schools that are diverse and safe. I want what every other parent in this city wants—a safe place to raise my children,” said Diane Link-Wallace, a former CHA resident and a named plaintiff in the suit. “CHA tore down my building, but didn’t help me in finding a home in a good neighborhood.”

The lawsuit was filed only after lawyers for plaintiffs exhausted all attempts at negotiation. “We consulted with experts nationwide and developed a program that is more likely to achieve the goals residents want and CHA says it is seeking, but the housing authority rejected it,” said Polikoff.

“CHA has proposed some changes in its relocation program. But these changes are too little for the thousand of families still to be relocated and too late for the 3,200 families already forced to move,” said Murphy.