A suburb of Chicago could soon become the first city in the country to fund reparations for black residents.
The City Council in Evanston City, Illinois, is scheduled to vote on the payments, using a 3% tax on legal marijuana sales, next week.
“In June of 2019, the City Council adopted a commitment to end structural racism and achieve racial equity, which was the impetus for the creation and adoption of a reparations Fund, which was adopted as part of the City Council’s 2020 budget process,” Evanston Communications Manager Patrick Deignan told the Washington Examiner.
Robin Rue Simmons, an alderman in Evanston’s 5th Ward, introduced the legislation. She says reparations are “the most appropriate legislative response to the historic practices and the contemporary conditions of the black community,” according to NBC News.
The city apportioned $10 million for creating programs to combat structural racism caused by past discriminatory policies, and a committee is being developed to propose future programs to help historically discriminated members of the community, according to Deignan.
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Officials describe the Evanston measure as being designed to address the discriminatory housing practices of the 20th century.
The first phase of the plan, titled Restorative Housing Reparations, seeks to address “past discriminatory policies/practices in housing by the City of Evanston between 1919 to 1969 towards Black residents of Evanston,” according to a draft document on the City Council’s webpage. That program is budgeted at $400,000 and would provide home purchase assistance to qualifying black residents up to $25,000.
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If passed, funds may not be used for taxes or aiding with building equity but can go toward mortgage principal, interest, or late penalties. To be eligible, someone must be a resident or a direct descendant of a black resident of Evanston between 1919 to 1969 who experienced discrimination in housing as a result of a city ordinance, policy, or practice.
The meeting for the vote is slated on March 22.
Not everyone is a fan of the measure. One organizer with the group called Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations said the current proposal would help “historically racist financial institutions.”
“This is not fully in scope and fully beneficial to the black community,” said Sebastian Nalls, a former mayoral candidate and organizer, according to NBC News. “Reparations is not just payment towards individuals that have been targeted by inequalities, but it’s also proving the harm that took place will not take place again and ensuring that more harm will not be caused.”
The 20-year-old said he believes reparations provided by the city should be direct payments to black individuals, calling the current name of the program “anti-black” and saying it should be more than a housing program.
Though the decision to create a reparations program stemmed from the 2019 written commitment to end structural racism, the City Council’s vote will follow a year in which there was a national reckoning on race and police following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, when a former officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Other cities and states have floated ideas for providing reparations to people who have been historically marginalized, including a California bill passed in June to assemble a task force for future implementations of statewide reparations initiatives.
