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San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors will consider a reparations plan Tuesday that could give $5 million to each Black resident.
A reparations package that includes a one-time payment of $5 million per Black resident will be considered at a meeting Tuesday of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors will consider more than 100 recommendations made by the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee.
The advisory committee is responsible for the development of a San Francisco Reparations Plan. The plan will highlight ways that city policies have harmed Black lives and also includes specific actions to address discrimination and inequities in areas like housing, education, transit access, and food security.
Other recommendations included in the Reparations Plan include offering grants to buy and maintain homes to exempting Black businesses from paying taxes.
In 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsome signed legislation creating a two-year reparations task force called the California Reparations Task Force, a first of its kind task force aimed at developing plans for implementing reparation payments to Black Americans.
The California Reparations Task Force voted in January 2023 to limit state compensation to the descendants of free and enslaved Black people who were in the U.S. in the 19th century, narrowly rejecting a proposal to include all Black people regardless of lineage.
The full San Francisco reparations proposal is due by July 2023 for the state legislature to consider turning into law.
Evanston, Illinois Issues Housing-Based Reparations
While reparations discussions have never gained momentum at the federal level, cities and states across the country have started to take matters into their own hands.
The city of Evanston, Illinois was one of the first cities in the nation to consider a reparations plan addressing the harms of slavery and racial discrimination. Last year the city chose 16 residents to receive $25,000 each in reparations to address harms from slavery to discriminatory housing policies.
The money from a fund created back in 2019 is allotted for a home down payment, mortgages, or repairing homes in an effort to increase minority property value.