- By Marcus White | Examiner staff writer
- Jul 3, 2023 Updated 22 hrs ago (SFExaminer.com)
The deadline for San Francisco’s landmark reparations report was extended without warning after June ended without its publication.
The San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee, which will sunset in January, was expected to publish its final report on June 30, just one day after California’s reparations task force published its own.
But a listing on The City’s website for the committee now says the closely-watched report’s deadline has been extended. It doesn’t say when the report is expected to be published or what caused the delay.
The Examiner is awaiting comment from the committee and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, which the former reports to. This story will be updated.
San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton, then the board of supervisors’ president and The City’s only Black supervisor, introduced a resolution in February 2020 directing the board to create a reparations committee.
The bill passed that August, three months after the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd prompted calls for governments worldwide to meaningfully grapple with historic mistreatment of Black people and the legacies of institutionalized racism and slavery.
The board-appointed 15-member commission first met two years ago in June, submitting reports in December 2021 and 2022. The latter, a draft that included more than 100 policy recommendations, grabbed national headlines and prompted outcry from conservative politicians, organizers and media for its recommendation to pay eligible Black residents $5 million lump-sum payments.
“The charge of the committee was not to do a feasibility study,” chair Eric McDonnell told the Board of Supervisors in March, noting that the committee’s report aimed to “chronicle the harm and determine the value” of the harm done to Black San Franciscans.
San Francisco supervisors unanimously accepted the draft report in March, but that didn’t mean the board adopted its policy recommendations. It remains to be seen which ones they will.
Supervisors, citing The City’s budget shortfall, expressed reservations about funding the payments. Last month’s budget agreement included $4 million over two years to establish and fund an Office of Reparations, down from the $50 million Walton initially requested.
A spokesperson for Mayor London Breed told the San Francisco Chronicle “she has not agreed” to allow her administration to spend the $4 million on creating an office.
The committee will file its report amid a decadeslong exodus of Black residents, as many who still call The City home feel left behind in one of the nation’s wealthiest areas.
San Francisco’s Black population has declined in every census count since 1970, according to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, making African Americans the only racial group in The City to shrink as the overall population grew.
Black San Franciscans are overrepresented among The City’s unhoused population (35%) compared to its overall population (6%), and the median household income for Black San Franciscans over the five years ending in 2021 ($46,163) is nearly $130,000 lower than what California housing officials this year defined as San Francisco’s area median income ($175,000).
