Alexander Polikoff, the lead attorney who help win a landmark Supreme Court case that desegregated public housing and forced the Chicago Housing Authority to build more public housing developments in Chicago’s predominately white neighborhoods, died May 27. He was 98. 

Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority was one of the most important housing desegregation cases in the country. The case led to the creation of CHA housing vouchers, which tenants use today to obtain apartments anywhere in the Chicago area. 

For many years, Dorothy Gautreaux lived in the Altgeld Murray Homes on the Far South Side. She was a community organizer and activist who joined forces with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to form the Chicago Freedom Movement. 

Months later, in 1996, Gautreaux and five Black tenants filed a federal class-action lawsuit against CHA. They alleged the housing agency built public housing sites in Black communities and assigned tenants by race. Lawyers said the practice violated the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) policies and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

CHA promptly asked the court to dismiss the Gautreaux case, arguing the plaintiffs had chosen the areas in which they wished to live and were therefore barred from complaining about CHA’s location policy. To support the argument, CHA produced application forms showing that the plaintiffs had expressed a preference for projects in Black urban areas rather than the few in white neighborhoods. 

Polikoff and other lawyers for Gautreaux argued that CHA employees had been instructed to tell Black applicants about the long waiting time for white neighborhood projects, and in this and other ways led them to “steer” applicants to the Black projects to which CHA wanted them to go. Proof of the steering helped the lawsuit to survive in court.  

Affidavits from some of the individual plaintiffs showing their desperate need for housing were also submitted in court.  

Gautreaux said that before moving to a CHA project, she and her husband and child had all occupied one bedroom in an uncle’s apartment. Gautreaux’s uncle and his wife and three children were living in two rooms and cooking in the bathroom. Gautreaux’s uncle was among many tenants who said his application had been filled out by CHA interviewers who had told them to choose the project where, according to the interviewer, they could get apartments most quickly. 

In court, Gautreaux and the plaintiffs were given the right to sue, and CHA was ordered to turn over their files to prove that the alleged discriminatory acts were intentional. The Chicago Urban League enlisted a dozen students who went through CHA’s files for relevant documents in the case.  

The investigation revealed that 99.4 percent of CHA’s 10,256 family units – all but 63 – were placed in Black neighborhoods. 

In 1968, CHA tried once again to dismiss the case but failed. On February 9, 1969 Judge Richard B. Austin ruled that CHA had violated tenants’ rights and ordered CHA to enter a consent decree. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyers argued for a formula that would require a majority of future CHA units to be built in white neighborhoods, urging that the old pattern would surely continue if a specific formula were not imposed. 

CHA appealed the ruling, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which affirmed Austin’s original ruling.  

White residents were concerned about poor Black residents moving into their neighborhoods. The Chicago Tribune expressed its opposition and concerns in an editorial. 

The Gautreaux case took more than 50 years to litigate. The case was finally settled in 2019. 

An amendment to that settlement was approved by a judge last year, requiring the CHA to address racial segregation in public housing developments and strengthen other programs. The case allowed Black segregated residents to receive federal housing vouchers to move anywhere across the Chicago area. 

Gautreaux never got to see the fruits of her efforts. She died in 1968, before her case won and became a landmark Supreme Court ruling.  She was just 41 years old.  

Polikoff was a key figure in the case. He was born January 21, 1927, in Chicago and earned his bachelor’s, master’s and law degrees from the University of Chicago. He wrote five books and was an active reader and writer, even until recently.  He also published, “Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing, and the Black Ghetto,” as well as other books about public housing. 

In 1970, Polikoff became executive director of the Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, now called Impact for Equity. He served in that role until 1999, then worked as the organization’s housing director until 2022.