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Longest public housing discrimination lawsuit against CHA reveals that it paid $8.5 million in legal fees:


          
 The Chicano Housing Authority (CHA) has paid out $8.5 million to Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI) in legal fees over the course of 51 years. BPI represented a group of low income Chicago public housing residents. The firm has been locked in litigation with CHA for over 51 years, the longest running housing discrimination lawsuit in American history. The case began in 1966 accusing the CHA of racial discrimination and segregation of housing for public housing recipients.
             The “Gautreaux Case”, which was initiated to fight racial discrimination, in the form of segregation, and the CHA systemic practices of having low-income black residents concentrated in high-rise public housing buildings, for the purpose of preventing them from being able to move to more diverse and opportunity rich neighborhoods. This litigation was never intended to end in a payout for the discriminated residents, but to change the landscape of the CHA itself. The case created the housing choice voucher program, scattered site complexes, and the beginning of desegregating the CHA’s housing concentrations, and grant access to better schools for kids all over the city.
             This January, Rahm Emmanuel and the CEO of the CHA, Eugene Jones reached a settlement with BPI, thus ending decade’s long litigation. Many Chicagoans see this settlement through different lenses, one side rejoicing in the fact that CHA was forced to take steps in making their programs better suited to fit the needs of the residents. The other view is the huge payday for the firm and the attorneys, while many Chicagoans continue to live in old and dilapidated housing. 

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