The Hollman Case: Challenging Racial Segregation in Federal Housing Programs

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2 : Challenging Racial Segregation in Federal Housing Programs By Timothy L. Thompson For many years, the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis represented dissatisfied clients in the racially segregated and physically deteriorated north Minneapolis public housing projects. In 1991 we at the Legal Aid Society stopped to ask ourselves: does it have to be this way? 1 That question led to a yearlong work plan, the filing of a federal court class action against five governmental agencies, a more than $100 million consent decree, and now, a decade later, some hopeful answers to that question. In this article I describe that decade-long journey in the hope that others in the legal services community will be encouraged to question whether the circumstances of their clients living situations are inevitable. This article about the Hollman lawsuit and consent decree is divided into three sections: developing and preparing the lawsuit, litigating the case and negotiating the settlement, and monitoring and participating in the decree s implementation. 2 I. Developing and Preparing the Lawsuit By 1991 two aspects of the north Minneapolis public housing projects had become quite apparent. One was that our clients voiced frequent and widespread complaints about the physical and social living conditions in the projects. 3 The other was that these projects were completely racially segregated, with all the residents either African American or, more recently, Southeast Asian immigrants. At about the same time, we became aware of a handful of public housing desegregation lawsuits from around the country; these lawsuits raised the possibility that patterns of multidecade entrenched residential racial segregation could be challenged. 4 Timothy L. Thompson is litigation director, Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance, 430 1st Ave. N., Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55401; ext. 250; tthompsn@midmnlegal.org. 1 The Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis is part of a larger regional program known as Mid- Minnesota Legal Assistance. 2 Filed as Hollman v. Kemp, No (D. Minn. filed July 27, 1992) (Clearinghouse No. 48,294), the consent decree is captioned Hollman v. Cisneros, and the case now is styled Hollman v. Martinez. 3 Lucy Hollman, who would become the first plaintiff listed on the complaint, originally contacted our office because the grounds outside her unit were nothing but dirt, creating dust in dry weather and mud when it rained. 4 Hollman was one of several public housing desegregation lawsuits, inspired in part by the encouragement of Florence Roisman, professor of law and Paul Beam Fellow, Indiana University School of Law Indianapolis, and by an article in this publication, Elizabeth K. Julian & Michael M. Daniel, Separate and Unequal: The Root and Branch of Public Housing Segregation, 23 CLEARINGHOUSE REV. 665 (Oct. 1989). 240 CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW JULY AUGUST 2002

3 We decided that exploring the possibility of such a challenge in Minneapolis was worth a substantial investment of time. We spent much time digging through historical public records, some of which dated back to the 1930s. We discovered that when the Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority developed the public housing family projects in Minneapolis in the 1930s and again in the 1950s, the Minneapolis City Council rejected the notion that public housing should be scattered throughout the city and chose to concentrate virtually all of the housing in the poorest section of north Minneapolis. 5 We also discovered that after these public decisions to avoid integrating white neighborhoods of Minneapolis, the housing authority, the city, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) failed to take advantage of subsequent opportunities to change these housing patterns. 6 When scattered-site public housing became available in the 1960s, virtually all the scatteredsite housing of the first few years was limited to the neighborhood immediately surrounding the public housing projects and a similar black neighborhood in south Minneapolis. 7 By the late 1970s the Section 8 Housing Certificate Program offered promising opportunities to enable families to move throughout the city and eventually to the suburbs. 8 However, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority was administering the Section 8 program in a way that effectively gave families very little choice about where to live. If a family requested from the housing authority a list of units for which landlords were willing to accept Section 8 certificates, the list they received was short and included units that the city had declared unfit for human habitation. We examined records of where certificate holders were living and discovered that they mostly were concentrated in inner-city minority neighborhoods in Minneapolis. 9 Meanwhile, the legacy of these historical decisions was a large concentration of public housing projects in north Minneapolis; these projects were racially segregated and physically isolated from the surrounding community. By 1992 the buildings had deteriorated, employment among residents was rare, and fear of crime was ever present. 10 This pattern of segregation was not unique to Minneapolis but was the result of national policies as well. Groundbreaking research that public interest lawyers conducted in other cases around the country established a clear record demonstrating that HUD and its predecessor agency had led the way in deliberately segregating public housing throughout the country. 11 After more than six months of research and investigation, we concluded that we could make a case for illegal racial segregation under the U.S. Constitution, 5 Based on a large collection of documents on file with Timothy L. Thompson. We found a letter from the executive director of the housing authority indicating that the results of the city council s housing siting decisions demonstrated the success of the advocates of segregation. Letter from A.C. Godward, executive director, Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority, to S.L. Stolte, chairman, Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority 1 2 (Aug. 6, 1953) (on file with Timothy L. Thompson). 6 Based on a large collection of documents on file with Timothy L. Thompson. 7 Based on a large collection of documents on file with Timothy L. Thompson. 8 See 42 U.S.C. 1437f (2001). 9 The question of whether such residential patterns are the result of deliberate choice by residents is a large and complicated one, but many of our clients told us that they would have preferred more choice outside the inner city. 10 Just a few years earlier, the executive director of the Minneapolis Housing and Development Authority had characterized these concentrated housing projects as a mistake; they provided decent housing but at a terrible price in social problems. Nick Coleman, 1960s Renewal Fails to Cure Slum Problems, MINNEAPOLIS TRIB., Aug. 1, 1976, at B See, e.g., Young v. Pierce, 628 F. Supp. 1037, (E.D. Tex. 1985) (Clearinghouse No. 41,451) (finding that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding, regulation, and assistance of local public housing authorities amounted to unconstitutional support of segregation). JULY AUGUST 2002 JOURNAL OF POVERTY LAW AND POLICY 241

4 We were concerned about the limitations of a team of mostly white lawyers engaging in a far-reaching effort on behalf of a large class of clients of color. the Fair Housing Act, and other housing statutes. 12 When residents of the northside public housing projects came to us for representation on various housing matters, we began exploring with them the possibility of challenging their living conditions. We also began exploring a key question with both individual clients and community organizations: if we wanted to fix these conditions of racial segregation and physical deterioration, how would we do it? This question did not lead to easy answers. We were aware that debates had raged for years among inner-city and civil rights advocates over whether such conditions were best addressed by concentrating on upgrading living conditions within such projects (in-place remedies) or by concentrating on providing alternative housing opportunities elsewhere in the community (mobility remedies). 13 The changing dynamics within our client community further complicated our effort to answer that question. Virtually all of the public housing desegregation lawsuits that had preceded our case involved solely segregation of African Americans. However, in the north-side projects the population was evolving from virtually 100 percent African American to an increasingly higher percentage of Southeast Asian residents. We had to ask ourselves: does the Southeast Asian community have different goals from the African American community? We soon discovered that believing that we could identify what either the African American or the Southeast Asian community wanted was a fallacy. Asking that question was no more legitimate than asking the question of what the white community of Minneapolis wanted. However, given that limitation, soliciting from as many residents and community organizations as possible opinions about how people would want to address their living conditions nevertheless seemed worthwhile. Based on our many discussions with residents and community leaders, we concluded that if we were to represent a class of persons participating in the public housing and Section 8 programs in Minneapolis, such representation would inevitably include two groups: those who wanted opportunities to live elsewhere and those who wanted to stay in the inner city but with better living conditions. This became the starting point for defining what we would want from a lawsuit. 14 As we neared the drafting of a lengthy federal court complaint, we approached the Minneapolis branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). We were concerned about the limitations of a team of mostly white lawyers engaging in a farreaching effort on behalf of a large class of clients of color. We wanted a partner that was a respected civil rights organization, had a history of local litigation on social justice issues, and would help us understand the larger community s concerns. 15 The NAACP readily signed on. 12 Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act), 42 U.S.C et seq. (1992). 13 See, e.g., Julian & Daniel, supra note 4, at Although many of the Southeast Asians expressed a preference for living near one another, this preference did not necessarily mean that they desired to remain in the public housing projects. Based on discussions with our clients, we concluded that they wanted us to pursue the twin goals of expanding housing choice and improving housing conditions. 15 We also had a strategic reason for including the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). We wanted to raise multiple claims that challenged a wide variety of practices in the administration of the public housing and Section 8 programs, and, to do so, we needed a plaintiff with standing to challenge each such practice. Over several years, clients circumstances can change frequently so as to render their claims moot; adding the NAACP as an organizational plaintiff gave us additional ammunition to fend off standing challenges. 242 CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW JULY AUGUST 2002

5 The final key step before filing suit was the development of a media strategy. We knew that the lawsuit would be high profile in Minneapolis, and it was. When we filed the lawsuit, it made the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and was the subject of a story by virtually all local media outlets. 16 We had arranged in advance for a detailed briefing with a Star Tribune reporter; this paid off in a lengthy and accurate story covering the lawsuit. II. Litigating the Case and Negotiating the Settlement In July 1992 in federal court the fourteen named plaintiffs representing a class and plaintiff NAACP filed suit challenging patterns of intentional racial segregation in the public housing and Section 8 programs in Minneapolis. The suit named as defendants the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Community Development Agency, and HUD. We later added the Metropolitan Council as a defendant. 17 The complaint set out, at some length, the Minneapolis City Council s pattern of deliberate siting of public housing units in order to avoid integrating white neighborhoods of Minneapolis, followed by the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority s and Minneapolis Community Development Agency s administration of subsequent housing programs, which HUD regulated, in ways that reinforced the same patterns of residential segregation. In the prayer for relief, the complaint was fairly general in seeking remedies to challenge such conditions but did include a request for substantial additional Section 8 subsidies, along with program reforms to make the use of those subsidies a viable means for broadening geographic choice. 18 The parties started the lawsuit by initiating lengthy written discovery. We were prepared for a long and arduous road with this litigation, given the history of most of public housing desegregation cases one of bitter and protracted struggle in which the defendants conceded little. Given that history, we were somewhat surprised when, not long into the case, various defendants counsel approached us and indicated a desire to discuss settlement. We agreed to a series of meetings to explore whether settlement was feasible. Thus began two years of regular and lengthy negotiating sessions. Typically we scheduled a separate session for particular subjects, and the eight or ten lawyers involved in the case as well as their clients then spent two or more hours discussing those subjects. Negotiations at times were difficult and contentious; however, that all parties were interested in finding solutions became clear fairly early. During these two years of negotiations, four key developments shaped the outcome of the settlement. The first was the condition of the projects. Although we knew that they were in bad shape before we filed suit, we did not discover until the negotiations that the housing 16 Jean Hopfensperger, Suit Alleges Segregation in Public Housing, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIB., July 28, 1992, at A1. 17 See infra note 20 and accompanying paragraph. 18 See Class Action Complaint, Hollman, No (filed July 27, 1992) (see Complaint, Clearinghouse No. 48,294A). Almost immediately after we filed the case, Judge James M. Rosenbaum called the parties into chambers. Judge Rosenbaum had begun his legal career as a lawyer in Chicago with some involvement in the Gautreaux case. For citations to the numerous Gautreaux decisions and discussions about this important line of cases, see Alexander Polikoff, Gautreaux and Institutional Litigation, 64 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 451 (1988); William P. Wilen & Wendy L. Stasell, Gautreaux and Chicago s Public Housing Crisis: The Conflict Between Achieving Integration and Providing Decent Housing for Very Low-Income African Americans, 34 CLEARINGHOUSE REV. 117 (July Aug. 2000). The Gautreaux case, the most significant of all public housing desegregation lawsuits in the United States, was still in active litigation after fifteen years. Judge Rosenbaum indicated that he was concerned about the potential for another such lengthy lawsuit, and he wanted to get a handle on the Hollman case immediately. JULY AUGUST 2002 JOURNAL OF POVERTY LAW AND POLICY 243

6 authority was looking at a rehabilitation cost of nearly $100,000 per unit. 19 That raised the question: did it make sense to invest that kind of money in units that everyone agreed never should have been placed there in the first place? This question presented the possibility that the same money could be used to demolish these units and rebuild them in locations that would give people a real choice about where to live. The second key development that influenced the outcome of the settlement was a highly public debate within the Twin Cities over a deepening pattern of racial and economic separation within the metropolitan area, in which jobs and economic wealth were leaving the central cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in favor of the outer-ring suburbs. This debate prompted the parties to the negotiations to conclude that the problem they were seeking to address could not be solved solely within the borders of the city of Minneapolis and that a metropolitan areawide focus was necessary. This conclusion in turn led to the addition of the Metropolitan Council as a defendant. 20 The council had administered in the early 1980s policies that effectively had promoted the spread of low-income housing opportunities throughout suburban locations but now had abandoned those policies. This abandonment afforded the basis for legal claims to bring the council into the case; this in turn gave a means for exploring a metropolitan areawide approach to settlement. By this stage, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority s thinking had evolved to the point that it asserted a third-party complaint, similar to that of plaintiffs, against HUD and the Metropolitan Council. The third key development affecting the settlement was due to a sea change at HUD. Previous HUD administrations had opposed vigorously public housing desegregation suits and had denied HUD s history of encouraging segregation in its programs. 21 When Henry Cisneros took over as secretary of HUD, the philosophy changed. 22 In the litigation we found HUD officials now open to and interested in fundamental change of the sort we were seeking. Eventually the parties produced a lengthy settlement, but one that depended largely on HUD for the funding to make it work. Despite HUD s supportive messages, HUD s Washington bureaucracy continued to move at a glacial pace in committing funding. Then, in 1994, the Republicans took over Congress. This led to the fourth key development shaping the outcome of the settlement: HUD s budget became a target for the advocates of smaller government. Suddenly resolving the case had urgency. HUD committed more than $117 million in public housing and Section 8 funding to make the settlement work, and the parties were able to complete the deal The projects were sitting on top of a part of the ancient Mississippi River creek bed; this meant that the foundations were badly cracking due to shifting subsoil. These geologic conditions ended up posing both a problem and an opportunity. See infra paragraph accompanying note See Plaintiffs Memorandum in Support of Motion to Amend Complaint and Add Defendant Metropolitan Council, Hollman, No (see Memorandum, Clearinghouse No. 48,294F); Second Amended Class Action Complaint, id. (see Second Amended Complaint, Clearinghouse No. 48,294B). State law authorizes the Metropolitan Council to serve as a metropolitan areawide planning agency and, in some instances, as an administrator of certain metropolitan areawide public services. MINN. STAT. ch. 473 (2000). 21 See, e.g., Clients Council v. Pierce, 711 F.2d 1406 (8th Cir. 1983); Gautreaux v. Romney, 448 F.2d 731 (7th Cir. 1971) (Clearinghouse No. 4490); Young, 628 F. Supp Born to Run HUD, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, Jan. 24, 1993, at B2 (editorial). 23 See Notice of Filing of Federal Defendants First Report re Implementation of Consent Decree 32 & 61, Hollman, No (July 20, 1995). In the last few days before the court approved the settlement, the entire settlement was jeopardized when an effort surfaced in Congress to place a hold on the funding designated for the settlement. Following a flurry of activity, this hold on the funding was released. 244 CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW JULY AUGUST 2002

7 On April 20, 1995, after a public comment period and a fairness hearing, Judge James M. Rosenbaum approved the fiftytwo-page consent decree. 24 The decree contained five major objectives: 1. The demolition of 770 physically crumbling and racially segregated public housing units and the replacement of each of those units with another public housing unit in locations throughout the metropolitan area The city s commitment to redevelop the neighborhood of the demolished public housing site pursuant to a vision to be developed through community planning An award of 900 new Section 8 certificates (now vouchers) to the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority in order to assist with relocation and to establish a mobility program, together with a series of reforms of the Section 8 program (these reforms were designed to make exercising real choice about where to live easier for families) The creation of a one-stop-shopping metropolitan-area clearinghouse where a family could go to receive comprehensive information on subsidized housing and to facilitate applying for such housing A collection of policy initiatives designed to promote fair housing throughout the metropolitan area, including the elimination of suburban area local residency preferences, which operated with a racially discriminatory impact. 29 The ideas for some of these objectives were borrowed from other lawsuits around the country, while others were based on unique circumstances in the Twin Cities. Because undoing a pattern of five decades of entrenched segregated living patterns is so difficult, the consent decree sought to attack the problem from a variety of directions. In further recognition of how daunting the challenge would be, the decree provided that the court would retain jurisdiction over implementation for a seven-year period, subject to possible extension. 30 III. Monitoring and Participating in the Decree s Implementation As it turned out, settlement was only the beginning of our work. Like the initial filing of the case, the settlement was widely publicized in the Minneapolis metropolitan area. 31 As lawyers for the plaintiffs, we found ourselves at many community meetings attempting to explain the complex settlement terms to a host of different audiences speaking multiple languages. Almost from the announcement of the settlement, the decree generated considerable controversy. Some in suburban communities objected to the decree and complained that they had not been included in the settlement negotiations but now were expected to be part of a solution for 24 See Consent Decree, Hollman, No (Mar. 8, 1995) (see Consent Decree, Clearinghouse No. 48,294K). 25 See id , In recent years, the demolition of similar public housing projects has become common around the country pursuant to the HOPE VI (Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere) program. Department of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act of 1993, Pub. L. No , 106 Stat However, unlike most HOPE VI projects, the Hollman decree provides for replacement of each demolished public housing unit with another public housing unit. See Consent Decree 22, 32, Hollman, No (Mar. 8, 1995) (see consent decree, Clearinghouse No. 48,294K) (providing for demolition of 770 units and funding for 770 replacement public housing units). 26 See Consent Decree 45 54, Hollman, No (Mar ). 27 See id See id See id Id See, e.g., Patrick Sweeney, Suit Prompts HUD Housing Aid, ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, Jan. 14, 1995, at A1. JULY AUGUST 2002 JOURNAL OF POVERTY LAW AND POLICY 245

8 a central-city problem. 32 On the other end of the scale, some inner-city advocates objected to the decree and argued that public housing should not be demolished and low-income minority neighborhoods should not be broken up. 33 Although this controversy was not unexpected, dealing with it nevertheless was challenging. As lawyers for the plaintiff class, we continued to rely heavily on the direction we received from our named plaintiffs (originally fourteen, later seventeen, African American and Southeast Asian families) to ensure that we were seeking what the class would want. 34 Over the next several years, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority selected agencies that relocated public housing residents, and the housing authority began demolition of the existing public housing buildings. 35 At the same time the housing authority, in consultation with several others, including plaintiffs counsel, began planning an ambitious effort to build new public housing units throughout the metropolitan area units earmarked largely for inner-city families of color. We had expected progress on this objective to be slow at first due to suburban resistance. 36 However, at least as large a problem was the lack of an effective delivery system to develop, own, and manage public housing in many suburban locations. Relocation and demoli- 32 See EDWARD G. GOETZ, CTR. FOR URBAN & REGIONAL AFFAIRS, UNIV. OF MINN., DECONCENTRATING POVERTY IN MINNEAPOLIS: HOLLMAN V. CISNEROS, REPORT NO. 8, REPLACEMENT HOUSING 14 (2002), (one of eight reports the center published on Hollman; all eight reports are available at 33 See EDWARD G. GOETZ, CTR. FOR URBAN & REGIONAL AFFAIRS, UNIV. OF MINN., DECONCENTRATING POVERTY IN MINNEAPOLIS: HOLLMAN V. CISNEROS, REPORT NO. 2, PLANNING FOR NORTH SIDE REDEVELOPMENT (2002), Hollman-2.pdf. Many public housing applicants already had voted with their feet, expressing their dissatisfaction with the north-side projects by rejecting offers of units and going elsewhere. In the late 1980s the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority had examined its public housing waiting list and discovered that eight out of nine African Americans who reached the top of the waiting list declined a unit rather than move into the north-side projects. 34 An additional complication for us was a problem of perception. Once the parties had pounded out the detailed consent decree, we found ourselves working closely with the defendants to negotiate and plan the many details necessary to make it work. However, some in the community had the perception that legal aid was now in bed with the housing authority and the city. The reality was that, although we worked together on many issues, we also had several differences during the implementation period, and we found it necessary to threaten to take the defendants back to court on several occasions. 35 Despite the predictions of inner-city advocates opposed to the consent decree that public housing residents would not want to leave their current location, approximately onehalf chose to move outside of inner-city neighborhoods. See EDWARD G. GOETZ, CTR. FOR URBAN & REGIONAL AFFAIRS, UNIV. OF MINN., DECONCENTRATING POVERTY IN MINNEAPOLIS: HOLLMAN V. CISNEROS, REPORT NO. 5, RELOCATION OF RESIDENTS FROM NORTH SIDE PUBLIC HOUSING (2002), Many families were able to use relocation benefits for a down payment on the purchase of a home, making the Hollman relocation effort probably the most successful low-income homeownership program in recent years in the Twin Cities. See id. at 12 tbl.8 (noting that sixty-six families were able to use relocation benefits for a down payment on the purchase of a home). However, relocation was painful for some residents, particularly elderly Hmong residents. See Urban Coalition, Relocation and New Housing Study of Sumner Field Public Housing Residents in 1996, at ii iii (1997); see generally GOETZ, REPORT NO. 5, supra. 36 In recognition of the difficulty in achieving suburban cooperation, the decree included both carrots and sticks designed to encourage suburban participation. The main carrot for a suburb to participate was the ability to place its own residents in approximately 30 percent of the suburban public housing units rather than placing families from Minneapolis. See Consent Decree 37, Hollman, No (Mar. 8, 1995) (see Consent Decree, Clearinghouse No. 48,294K). An example of a stick was the provision that, in evaluating a jurisdiction s fair housing performance, HUD would look at the degree to which the jurisdiction cooperated in accepting Hollman units. See id. 88, CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW JULY AUGUST 2002

9 tion proceeded comparatively swiftly, while progress in producing replacement units came painfully slowly. In the summer of 1999 the plan to implement the decree hit a major obstacle. As the housing authority prepared to demolish the final public housing units, a group of black ministers staged a sit-in in front of the bulldozers, and Minneapolis African American mayor called a halt to the demolition. 37 The ministers and other affordable-housing advocates used the occasion to dramatize the affordable-housing crisis by demanding a halt to the demolition and restoration of the units to a state in which they could be occupied. By this point, the Minneapolis NAACP had elected new leaders, who viewed the decree differently from the previous leaders. The new leaders were wary of demolition and desegregation of housing opportunities and came down on the side of the protesters. 38 These events put class plaintiffs counsel in an awkward position. We were sympathetic with the notion that, generally speaking, affordable housing should not be demolished. We also heartily agreed that the pace of producing replacement housing was too slow. However, after consulting with our clients and examining the feasibility of the NAACP s proposal to stop the demolition and restore units for occupancy, we concluded that, as a practical matter, halting demolition would not result in the effective restoration of these units for occupancy. Moreover, halting demolition simply would delay the opportunity to redevelop the site of the projects, and the redevelopment would afford the single biggest opportunity to build replacement units. Nevertheless, the NAACP filed a motion to enjoin the remaining demolition. As counsel for the class, we then were put in the unusual position of opposing a motion by our coplaintiff. The court denied the motion and authorized the demolition to proceed; the court noted that what the new NAACP leadership wanted was clearly contrary to the decree s purpose, to which the NAACP had agreed. 39 With the resolution of the demolition issue, controversy largely subsided. By this point, two influential organizations, Because undoing a pattern of five decades of entrenched segregated living patterns is so difficult, the consent decree sought to attack the problem from a variety of directions. the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency and the Twin Cities Family Housing Fund, had concluded that successful implementation of the Hollman decree was so critical that they were willing to commit their own time and funding to assist in developing the replacement public housing units. 40 The Metropolitan Council also agreed to assume a larger role. 41 The pace of developing replacement units began to increase steadily. Meanwhile, community planning for the redeveloped site had been completed, and the planning resulted in an exciting vision of a mixed-income neighborhood (containing approximately 25 percent public housing units) filled with amenities and capitalizing on the area s natural conditions by creating a creek and a series of ponds around which housing would be built. A new boulevard would create a direct link between the previously isolated redevelopment site and the more privileged neighborhoods and amenities of south Minneapolis. The city formally adopted a plan to redevelop the site pur- 37 See GOETZ, REPORT NO. 2, supra note 33, at 30; Kevin Diaz, Mayor Stops Razing of Project, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIB., June 9, 1999, at A1. 38 See GOETZ, REPORT NO. 2, supra note 33, at Hollman, No (Sept. 30, 1999) (Order at 18) (see Order, Clearinghouse No. 48,294O; see also Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Clearinghouse Nos. 48,294L, 48,294M; Opposition, Clearinghouse No. 48,294N). 40 See GOETZ, REPORT NO. 8, supra note 32, at See id. at 9; David Peterson & Steve Brandt, Met Council to Develop Public Housing in Suburbs, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIB., Jan. 13, 2000, at B1. JULY AUGUST 2002 JOURNAL OF POVERTY LAW AND POLICY 247

10 suant to decree requirements; the plan s price tag since has risen to more than $200 million. 42 We now have reached the seven-year mark since the court approved the decree. The work is not done, but the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter. Approximately two-thirds of the public housing units earmarked for suburban locations have been completed and are occupied, mostly by Minneapolis families of color. Construction has begun on the redeveloped site, now known as Heritage Park, and the first public housing units will be available in the fall of Distribution of the additional Section 8 vouchers has proven to be more difficult; a combination of administrative delays and an extremely tight rental market making it difficult to use vouchers has resulted in the distribution of less than one-half of the 900 vouchers authorized. In response, the parties have agreed to a decree amendment that enables the parties, by converting tenantbased vouchers to project-based vouchers, to achieve the same goal of broadening the geographic range of where families may live. The prospects are improving for the initial issuance of the vouchers through a combination of project-basing vouchers and a tenant-based mobility program. The information clearinghouse called for in the decree (the HousingLink), now up and running for several years, has taken an entrepreneurial approach by developing several products that ease the housing search for low-income home seekers. 43 HUD, the Metropolitan Council, and the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority have implemented the other fair housing policy objectives set out in the decree. In summer 2002 plaintiffs and defendant third-party plaintiff Minneapolis Public Housing Authority moved to extend the court s jurisdiction until the remaining tasks were completed. Only HUD opposed this motion. On July 12, 2002, the court granted the motion, extending jurisdiction over HUD and other defendants until November Both the remaining public housing units and the remaining Section 8 vouchers need to be completed by September Although much of the Heritage Park neighborhood will be completed by that date, some parts of the connecting boulevard and the for-sale units will be phased in for several years afterward. FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE LEGAL AID lawyers, the progress of the Hollman case has been a wild ride, at times exhilarating and at times rocky. The case has given us learning opportunities beyond anything we could have imagined. This case has required us, in addition to doing extensive legal research and analysis, to develop expertise in public housing design, geologic conditions, opinion survey techniques, federal housing policy, the financial structure of mixed-income and mixedfinance projects, managing media messages, orchestrating community planning, and many other previously foreign subjects. After years of delay and obstacles, the payoff is beginning. We now see thrilled class members moving into brandnew high-quality homes all over the Minneapolis metropolitan area. The struggle has been worth it. 42 As a last-minute amendment, the city council changed the plan such that it would have eliminated all rental housing other than the public housing units. Plaintiffs had to threaten to take the city back to court because such a plan would isolate the public housing units and threaten the project s mixed-income character. The city eventually backed down. 43 For more information on HousingLink, see 44 Hollman, No (July 12, 2002) (Order) (see Order, Clearinghouse No. 48,294T; see also Motion for Extension of Jurisdiction, Clearinghouse Nos. 48,294P, 48,294Q; Opposition, Clearinghouse No. 48,294R; Reply, Clearinghouse No. 48,294S). 45 See Consent Decree 44, Hollman, No (Mar. 8, 1995) (see Consent Decree, Clearinghouse No. 48,294K) (requiring that replacement housing be completed and available for occupancy six years from date of HUD s approval of demolition-disposition application; HUD approved the last of the four applications in September 1998). 248 CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW JULY AUGUST 2002