Moving Away From Failure

Washington is about to duplicate a Chicago housing program that has put hundreds of welfare mothers to work by simply relocating them from isolated, inner-city public-housing projects to middle-class urban and suburban neighborhoods.

The program, named Gautreaux after the woman who sued to challenge Chicago’s historic racial segregation of public housing projects, is neither workfare nor welfare reform. It is actually a court-ordered remedy to a landmark class-action suit. Since 1976, it has allowed poor black families to use federal housing vouchers to escape the projects.

Integration, however, is only part of the accomplishment. An unintended consequence has been the economic success of black families when they move to neighborhoods that offer access to more jobs with higher earnings, plus better schools and less crime.

Unlike California’s GAIN workfare program, Gautreaux offers no jobs, training, placement or classes. Even so, nearly 60% of the women in the program have found jobs, according to a Northwestern University study, without prodding from government or the threat of losing welfare benefits. They have persevered in spite of racial discrimination, low skills, limited day care or inadequate transportation.

Even women who had never held jobs, including some second-generation welfare recipients, went to work. According to the study, 49% of these hard-core recipients found jobs after they moved.

Applicants are carefully screened. They must pay rent on time and pass a simple housekeeping inspection. They can have no more than four children. Tens of thousands meet these criteria in Chicago but space is limited to a few hundred a year because few suburban landlords will rent to subsidized tenants, and few middle-class families welcome poor neighbors, even in widely scattered locations.

A small budget will limit the federal program to 6,000 families. The Housing and Urban Affairs Department will oversee the effort in five to 10 cities, including Los Angeles. The families, selected for the federal version on the basis of income, not race, will move from poor areas to middle-class neighborhoods during the next two years. If the Chicago program is any indication, many will leave gangs, crime and welfare behind for a better life for themselves and their children.