Jennie Dunn, a former ABLA resident and vice president of Concerned Residents, lived in the Addams Homes for 32 years and raised three children before moving in June. The 1969 ruling in the federal lawsuit Gautreaux vs. the Chicago Housing Authority led to an agreement to move thousands of Chicago public housing families into neighborhoods that were less than 30 percent black or were redeveloping. In 1976, the Leadership Council was assigned to help 7,100 families move to racially integrated areas with Section 8 certificates. That program, to be completed later this year, is regarded as a national model for housing desegregation. The Council's efforts may have closed a chapter on efforts to reform public housing through racial integration.
New initiatives ignore race, concentrating instead on creating mixed-income neighborhoods.
Under the program, CHAC placed 143 randomly selected CHA families in neighborhoods where 10 percent or less of the population fell below the poverty line, said Jennifer L. O'Neill, CHAC's deputy director. Their progress will be measured against a similar comparison group that is being placed without the counseling. But most of the families are still moving to African American neighborhoods, including Chatham and Calumet Heights. S. Cottage Grove Ave. The law of the land doesn't allow steering.