San Francisco’s reparations committee proposes a $5 million payment to every long-time black resident

San Francisco’s repair committee will propose paying $5 million to every longtime black resident of the city in a repair plan this spring.

To qualify, individuals must have identified as black in public records for at least 10 years and be at least 18 years old. They must also qualify for two of a series of requirements, including being born in or immigrating to the city between 1940 and 1996 and then having lived there for 13 years.

It’s unclear exactly how many people would qualify if the proposal passed, but if only 10,000 people qualified, it would cost at least $50 billion.

The proposal will be presented to Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in June. Board Chairman Aaron Peskin told the San Francisco Chronicle waiting for the proposal to be approved.

They came to light weeks after the chairman of the California Reparations Task Force claimed that black residents of the state were each owed $1 million.

An example of racist policies from San Francisco’s past cites the reparations proposal

The $5 million payment to qualifying San Franciscans is just the beginning of the draft proposals.

‘The lump sum payment would compensate the affected population for the decades of damage they have experienced, and will repair the economic and opportunity losses that black San Franciscans have suffered, collectively, as a result of intentional decisions and unintentional damages. perpetuated by City politics.’

The proposal also offers a number of other requirements to be handed over to those who qualify, including creating a “comprehensive debt forgiveness program” that would eliminate credit card and other debt, along with student and home loans.

“Black households are more likely to have more expensive and risky debt, and are more likely to have outstanding student loan debt,” the proposal said. ‘When this is combined with lower family income, it can create an inescapable cycle of debt. Eliminating this debt gives black households the opportunity to build wealth.”

The requirements to receive the repair benefits proposed by the committee

San Francisco Board of Supervisors Chairman Aaron Peskin told the San Francisco Chronicle that he expects the proposal to pass.

The proposal also says that qualifying low-income households should have their income supplemented to match the city’s median income – $97,000 in 2022 – for the next 250 years.

“Racial disparities across all metrics have led to a significant racial gap in wealth in the City of San Francisco,” the draft states.

“By raising income to match AMI, Blacks can better afford housing and achieve a better quality of life.”

A host of other proposals include investments in San Francisco’s black community, financial education, legal protections from individuals’ reparations, tax credits, and black-owned banks to manage people’s money.

The proposal also says that San Francisco “issue a formal apology for past damage and commit to making ongoing, systemic, and programmatic substantial investments in Black communities to address historic damage.”

A timeline of San Francisco’s black residents set forth in the draft proposal

A map of red lines cited in the proposal. The map was created for banks to rate the safety of loans made to residents of certain areas of the city. The most risky assumptions, the red zones, were the black neighborhoods.

Slavery was never legal in California, but the state was a haven for slave owners during the period.

The proposal also cites a number of city initiatives from decades past that studies show were racially motivated and had debilitating effects on the black population.

Some were as simple as the first legal restrictions on where blacks could live in the city and the kinds of jobs they could hold.

Others were as far-reaching as citywide zoning measures that left black communities effectively ghettoized, or completely bulldozed and unoccupied for years.

In addition to the racial, age, and length of San Francisco residency requirements, people who meet other requirements would be eligible for repairs.

Other qualifying factors include being able to prove descent from a slave, having been affected by, or being directly descended from someone who was affected by urban renewal and other policies in the 20th century.

Qualifiers can also be a direct descendant of someone who was incarcerated during the War on Drugs campaign, have themselves been incarcerated under the initiative, or can show they attended San Francisco public schools during desegregation.

The proposal will be presented to Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in June.

People speak at a reparations task force meeting in San Francisco in April 2022

The proposal will be presented to San Francisco leadership in June.

“There are so many efforts that result in incredible reports that just end up collecting dust on a shelf,” San Francisco Board of Supervisors Chairman Peskin told the SF Chronicle.

“We cannot allow this to be one of them,” he added.

The proposal was compiled by the San Francisco African American Remedies Advisory Committee. [AARAC], which was commissioned by the Board of Supervisors. He first ran for leadership in December.

“Centuries of harm and destruction of Black lives, Black bodies and Black communities must be met with centuries of reparation,” AARAC President Eric McDonnell told the SF Chronicle. “If you look at San Francisco, it’s very much a tale of two cities.”

The San Francisco proposals come after the head of the California Remedial Task Force, Kamilah Moore, shared her demands for revenge.

She said that all black Californians descended from slaves were owed $1 million each.

Moore also said that any black resident who has suffered housing discrimination at the hands of California is owed $223,500.

He claimed that the red line (refusing loans like mortgages to the poorest people) had kept many black Californians in poverty between 1933 and 1977.

Despite the enormous cost of complying with the proposals, Moore insists that they would actually benefit California’s economy by stimulating consumer spending.