THE GAUTREAUX HOUSING MOBILITY PROGRAM
“Housing mobility” – housing vouchers with counseling offered to inner-city families who wished to move to better neighborhoods – emerged as a result of the unanimous 1976 Supreme Court decision in Hills v. Gautreaux. In that case, argued by BPI’s Alexander Polikoff, the Court ruled that the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development could be required to offer a metropolitan-wide housing mobility program to victims of racial discrimination in public housing in Chicago. The decision led directly to the creation of the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, which operated in Chicago and some 115 suburbs for 22 years, from late 1976 until 1998. During that time about 7,500 families (over 20,000 persons) were enabled to move out of high poverty, racially segregated areas within Chicago. Most moved to low poverty, white or integrated suburban communities.
The experiences of the moving families were examined by a team of sociologists from Northwestern University headed by Professor James Rosenbaum. The team began to issue reports beginning in the early 1990s. The studies showed that life circumstances for many families – measured by employment, safety, children’s schooling, and the like – improved significantly. Rosenbaum’s studies led to considerable national interest, both in the print and electronic media.
The Gautreaux Program, the Rosenbaum studies, and the ensuing national publicity gave rise to a number of smaller mobility programs (mounted either voluntarily or as litigation remedies), three national housing mobility conferences, a considerable literature on housing mobility, and a ten-year, five-city national demonstration program, Moving to Opportunity (MTO), that is still ongoing.
MOVING TO OPPORTUNITY (MTO)
The MTO demonstration was begun in the early 1990s. (The initial proposal to Congress, in HUD’s FY 1993 Budget, said “Research findings on the Gautreaux Demonstration appear to demonstrate for the first time that living outside an area of poverty by itself has positive effects for high-risk families.”) Between 1994 and 1998 the housing authorities in five demonstration sites – Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York – working in partnership with local nonprofit counseling agencies, recruited about 4,600 very low-income families for the demonstration. Each family was randomly assigned to one of three groups. An experimental group was offered housing vouchers that could only be used in low-poverty neighborhoods (where less than 10% of the population was poor), and counseling assistance. A section 8 group was offered the same vouchers, but with no geographical restriction and no special assistance. A control group, not offered vouchers, continued to live in public housing or receive other project-based assistance.
Studies of experiences of the three groups of families were to be submitted to Congress after five, and again after ten, years. The five year evaluation was completed in September 2003 by agencies selected by HUD. Preparations for the ten year study are underway. A number of “local studies,” on the experiences of families in particular demonstration sites, have also been published.
In general, unlike the positive education and employment effects Rosenbaum had observed in Gautreaux families, the five year evaluation of MTO found only small education effects and none respecting employment. Significant positive effects were found respecting quality of housing, neighborhood conditions, perceptions of safety, and other factors. “Local studies” also show substantial health benefits.
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