New York Times Documentary Video Examines Legacy of BPI’s Landmark Gautreaux Case

BPI’s landmark Gautreaux case is one focus of an inspiring 15-minute documentary produced for The New York Times by the independent news organization Retro Report. The film looks back on the history of the case—including the first Supreme Court opinion to address racial discrimination in public housing—and explores its current relevance. Through interviews with BPI’s Alex Polikoff, lead attorney on the case, former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, and members of one of the first families to benefit from the legal settlement reached with HUD in the aftermath of the High Court’s decision, it provides an in-depth look at the legal, policy and social implications of the case.

As a result of the court settlement, some 7,000 public housing families were able to move from inner-city Chicago to low-poverty, integrated neighborhoods, mostly in the suburbs. Studies by teams of sociologists from Northwestern University showed strikingly positive outcomes—in health, employment, education, and more—for moving families.

“It was a hopeful moment because a new doorway had opened up in terms of how to deal with segregated neighborhoods,” Polikoff told the reporter during the filming of the piece.

Subsequently, HUD mounted a five-city demonstration called Moving to Opportunity to see if the Gautreaux results could be replicated in a randomized experiment. They weren’t, although later analysis showed that flaws in design and implementation were the reasons.

“The conventional wisdom became that mobility doesn’t work,” Polikoff recalled, “and the government was not willing to consider it as a policy.” Meanwhile, concentrated poverty and racial segregation in many cities continued to grow.

But now a new chapter in the housing mobility saga may be opening up. In 2015 longer term research on HUD’s demonstration provided support for the original Gautreaux findings of long-term positive outcomes for moving families—particularly for children who move at a young enough age to reap the full benefits of better schools, safer neighborhoods and more robust community resources.

Toward the end of the documentary, Harvard economist Lawrence Katz affirms that the new research he conducted with colleagues Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren demonstrates strong positive effects for families who are given the chance to escape high-poverty, segregated neighborhoods. Providing powerful personal testimony, Valencia Morris and her three daughters—all of whom have all gone on to successful professional careers—reflect on how their move out of poverty made their success possible.

“You can’t have the energy to do the hard work that it takes to get ahead when you’re under the weight and oppression of poverty,” said Kiah Morris, who now serves as a Vermont state legislator, the first black female in 25 years to be elected to that state’s legislature.

The documentary and an accompanying New York Times essay can be found at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/us/housing-bias-and-the-roots-of-segregation.html