The San Francisco Reparations Committee will propose paying $5 million to each longtime black resident in the city in a reparations 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 of age. They must also qualify for two of several requirements, including being born or immigrated to the city between 1940 and 1996 and then having lived there for 13 years.
It’s unclear how many people would qualify if the proposal goes through, but if just 10,000 people qualified, it would cost at least $50 billion.
The proposal will be presented to the Mayor of London Breed and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in June. Chief Executive Aaron Peskin told the San Francisco Chronicle he hoped the proposal would go through.
They were unveiled weeks after the chairman of California’s Reparations Task Force claimed that the state’s black residents were each owed $1 million.
The proposal was put together by the Advisory Committee on African American Reparations in San Francisco, chaired by Eric McDonnell
An example of racist policies from San Francisco’s past is the reparations proposal cited
The $5 million payment to eligible San Francisco residents is just the beginning of the draft’s proposals.
“A lump sum payment would compensate affected populations for the decades of harm they have suffered and the economic losses and loss of opportunity Black San Franciscans have suffered collectively as a result of both intentional decisions and unintentional damage at City’s politics.”
The proposal also provides a number of other requirements for qualifiers to meet, including creating a “comprehensive debt relief program” that would eliminate credit card and other debt, as well as student and home loans.
“Black households are more likely to hold more expensive, riskier debt and are more likely to have outstanding student loan debt,” the proposal reads. “When this is combined with lower household incomes, it can lead to an inevitable debt cycle. Eliminating this debt gives black households an opportunity to build wealth.’
The Committee’s proposed requirements for receiving indemnity benefits
San Francisco Board of Trustees President Aaron Peskin told the San Francisco Chronicle he hoped the proposal would go through
The proposal also says that the income of skilled low-income households should be increased to the city’s median income — $97,000 in 2022 — for the next 250 years.
“Racial disparity across all metrics has resulted in a significant racial disparity in wealth in the city of San Francisco,” the draft reads.
“By raising income to the AMI, blacks can better afford housing and have a better quality of life.”
A number of other proposals include investment in San Francisco’s black community, financial education, legal protections for people’s reparations, tax credits, and the involvement of black-owned banks to manage people’s money.
The proposal also states that San Francisco “issues a formal apology for past harms and commits to making significant ongoing, systemic and programmatic investments in black communities to repair historical damages.”
A timeline of San Francisco’s black residents outlined in the draft proposal
A red card quoted in the proposal. The map was created for banks to assess the safety of loans granted to residents of specific neighborhoods. The supposedly riskiest – the red zones – were black neighborhoods
Slavery was never legal in California, but the state was a slaveowner’s paradise during this time.
The proposal also cites a number of city initiatives from decades past that studies have shown were racially motivated and had a debilitating impact on black communities.
Some were as simple as early legal restrictions on where black people lived in the city and what types of jobs they could hold.
Others have been as far-reaching as citywide zoning measures that have effectively marginalized black communities in ghettos or completely leveled them and left them empty for years.
In addition to race, age, and length of residence requirements in San Francisco, individuals who meet a number of other qualifications are eligible for the reparations.
Other qualifying factors include being able to prove descent from a slave, being affected by, or directly descended from someone affected by urban renewal and other policies in the 19th century.
Qualifiers may also be directly descended from someone who was imprisoned during the War on Drugs campaign, was himself imprisoned as part of the initiative, or can show proof of having attended San Francisco public schools during desegregation.
The proposal will be presented to the Mayor of London Breed and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in June
People speak at a meeting of the Task Force on Reparations in San Francisco, April 2022
The proposal will be presented to the San Francisco leadership in June.
“There’s so much effort that leads to incredible reports that just end up gathering dust on a shelf,” Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, told the SF Chronicle.
“We can’t let this be one of them,” he added.
The proposal was put together by the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee [AARAC], commissioned by the Supervisory Board. It was first presented to the leadership in December.
“Centuries of damage and destruction to Black lives, Black bodies and Black communities should be answered with centuries of repair,” AARAC Chair 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 California Reparations Task Force chief Kamilah Moore voiced her demands for repayment.
She said every black Californian descended from slaves is owed $1 million each.
Moore also said that each black resident who suffered housing discrimination from California was owed $223,500.
She claimed that redlining — the denial of credit, such as mortgages, to poorer people — kept many black Californians in poverty between 1933 and 1977.
Despite the huge cost of complying with the proposals, Moore insists they would actually benefit California’s economy by stimulating consumer spending.
Who is entitled to $5 million in reparations?
All Qualifiers must meet the following requirements at the Effective Date:
– Be at least 18 years old
– Identified as “Black/African American” in public records for at least 10 years
All qualifiers must also meet two of the following requirements:
– Be born in the city between 1940 and 1996 and have proof of residency for 13 years
– You immigrated to the city between 1940 and 1996 and have proof of residency for 13 years
– were imprisoned during the War on Drugs campaign or are directly descended from someone who was imprisoned
– Attended the city’s public schools during the period of desegregation
– Be descended from someone enslaved in the United States before 1865
– Are or are descended from someone who was evicted during the San Francisco urban renewal project between 1954 and 1973
– are descended from or are descended from a holder of a preference certificate
– Be part of a marginalized population that experienced bias in lending between 1937 and 1968 or experienced the effects of these practices between 1968 and 1968