{"id":25510,"date":"2023-03-16T13:48:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T20:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=25510"},"modified":"2023-03-16T13:48:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T20:48:32","slug":"how-first-hearing-on-s-f-reparations-proposal-to-pay-some-black-residents-5-million-went","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/03\/16\/how-first-hearing-on-s-f-reparations-proposal-to-pay-some-black-residents-5-million-went\/","title":{"rendered":"How first hearing on S.F. reparations proposal to pay some Black residents $5 million went"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/author\/jd-morris\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">J.D. Morris<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>March 14, 2023 Updated: March 15, 2023 4:37\u00a0p.m. (SFChronicle.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"1-image-23572876\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.hdnux.com\/photos\/01\/31\/73\/06\/23572876\/6\/1200x0.jpg\" alt=\"San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton led a lengthy discussion on the city's draft reparations plan during Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. Walton began the meeting by describing how Black community members engaged in reparations work are often on the receiving end of ugly, racist backlash and threats of violence, some of which, it turns out, has come from San Francisco residents.\u00a0\"\/><figcaption>1of2San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton led a lengthy discussion on the city&#8217;s draft reparations plan during Tuesday&#8217;s Board of Supervisors meeting. Walton began the meeting by describing how Black community members engaged in reparations work are often on the receiving end of ugly, racist backlash and threats of violence, some of which, it turns out, has come from San Francisco residents.&nbsp;Salgu Wissmath\/The Chronicle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"2-image-23572843\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.hdnux.com\/photos\/01\/31\/73\/05\/23572843\/3\/1200x0.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. April Y. Silas, executive director of Homeless Children\u2019s Network, speaks during public comment at the S.F. Board of Supervisors\u2019s public hearing about the city's draft reparations plan at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, March 14, 2023.\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><\/li><li><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>San Francisco legislators have shown broad support for a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/sf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-01\/HRC%20Reparations%202022%20Report%20Final_0.pdf\">draft plan<\/a>&nbsp;to provide&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/justinphillips\/article\/s-f-s-bold-misunderstood-reparations-proposal-17747114.php\">reparations to the city\u2019s Black community<\/a>, but they have not yet decided the fate of the most ambitious recommendation:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/justinphillips\/article\/sf-reparations-black-17716918.php\">$5 million lump-sum payments<\/a>&nbsp;to an unknown number of eligible recipients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a lengthy hearing Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously accepted the wide-ranging draft reparations plan crafted by a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/news\/article\/San-Francisco-set-to-approve-reparations-task-16148395.php\">committee tasked with proposing steps the city can take<\/a>&nbsp;to remedy harms that Black residents endured over generations because of systemic racism and the legacy of slavery.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Opinion:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/justinphillips\/article\/san-francisco-city-reparations-17841021.php\">S.F. politicians take constituents to task over racist reparations response<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet supervisors did not not decide whether or when to act on any of the individual actions recommended in the plan. The board won\u2019t decide on any specific reparations proposals, including potential cash payments, until after the committee submits its final report in June. Another hearing is planned for Sept. 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>San Francisco isn\u2019t alone in its efforts: A first-in-the-nation state&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/politics\/article\/california-s-reparations-task-force-is-still-17752641.php\">task force<\/a>&nbsp;is also studying how to implement reparations in&nbsp;all of California. The Chicago suburb of Evanston in 2021&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/evanston-illinois-becomes-first-u-s-city-pay-reparations-blacks-n1261791\">became the first U.S. city<\/a>&nbsp;to make reparations available to Black residents.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee\u2019s draft proposal includes dozens of recommendations, the potential $5 million one-time payments stand out as a particularly costly and politically difficult idea to implement. Multiple supervisors, including Board President Aaron Peskin, have said the payments are likely not financially feasible for now. Conservatives have panned the idea to local and national media outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 60-page draft reparations plan recommends far more than cash payments alone in its many proposals. In all, the plan includes more than 100 recommended actions related to economic empowerment, education, health and public policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you look at the (draft) report, you\u2019ll see so many examples of how Black folks were done wrong here in San Francisco, and all of that can really be traced back to the negative effects of slavery, which traced back to negative policies across the country, San Francisco being no different,\u201d said Supervisor Shamann Walton, who has been leading the board\u2019s efforts to develop the reparations plan since 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an interview with The Chronicle on Monday, Walton declined to discuss the specific cash payment proposal included in the draft reparations plan, saying he was still evaluating all of the committee\u2019s recommendations and would not weigh in on how the city should act until after the final report is submitted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At Tuesday\u2019s hearing, he issued a firm call for supervisors to implement reparations in some form.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is not a matter of whether or not there is a case for reparations for Black people here in San Francisco \u2014 it is a matter of what reparations will and should look like,\u201d Walton said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The full scope and cost of the potential lump-sum payments isn\u2019t yet clear. To be eligible for reparations payments under the draft plan, recipients would have to be 18 or older and have identified as Black or African American on public documents for at least a decade. Recipients would also have to meet other criteria that may include proving that they were born in San Francisco between 1940 and 1996, migrated to the city during the same years, lived in the city for at least 13 years or were displaced from the city because of urban renewal between 1954 and 1973.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The committee has not said how many people might qualify for the payments, but it will likely include an estimate in its final report, said chair Eric McDonnell, a native San Franciscan who is the CEO and founder of the consulting firm Peacock Partnerships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Committee members are not analyzing how the city would fund reparations payments.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe were not charged with doing a feasibility study,\u201d McDonnell told The Chronicle. \u201cWe were charged with chronicling the harm and assigning the value. Period. Think about it like an appraisal of your home. You don\u2019t get a number that the market will bear \u2014 you get the value of the home. Does the market pay that? Maybe. Maybe not.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The draft reparations plan details the history of discrimination and displacement Black people have faced in San Francisco, including racial covenants in housing deeds that specified that only white people could live in certain homes and neighborhoods. Black people were also denied bank loans for homes in areas where the government didn\u2019t want them to live.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After World War II, when thousands of Black residents moved to San Francisco to work shipyard jobs, the city\u2019s urban renewal plan led to the bulldozing of numerous buildings in the Fillmore district, displacing about 20,000 people, according to the draft plan. San Francisco\u2019s Black population&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/sf-hrc.org\/sites\/default\/files\/The_Unfinished_Agenda...%20%281%29.pdf\">peaked at about 13% in 1970<\/a>&nbsp;and has since fallen to about 5%.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite their small share of the overall city population, Black people accounted for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hsh.sfgov.org\/about\/research-and-reports\/pit-hic\/#2022-pit\">38% of the city\u2019s homeless population<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/sf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-02\/2023%2002_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf\">28% of its drug overdose deaths<\/a>&nbsp;in 2022, according to city data. As of 2019, Black families in San Francisco had an average income of $31,000 compared to $116,000 for white households,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/sf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2022-04\/Reallocation-of-SFPD-Funding-Report-09-2020.pdf\">the city has said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSan Francisco has systematically prevented Black people from accumulating, sustaining or passing down wealth, and that has actively destroyed our ability to be able to build wealth within our communities,\u201d Tinisch Hollins, vice chair of the reparations committee, told supervisors at their hearing Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beside the potential cash payments, the draft plan from the reparations committee recommends that the city consider supplementing African American income of low-income households to match the city\u2019s area median income, which was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/sfmohcd.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Documents\/MOH\/BMR%20Ownership\/2022%20AMI-IncomeLimits.pdf\">$97,000 for one person in 2022<\/a>.<br><br>Another recommendation is that the city offer first choice for subsidized below-market rate rental units to people who qualify for reparations. Other recommendations would have the city invest in scholarships and tuition assistance and even potentially eliminate student loan debt for Black San Franciscans that went through the city\u2019s public school system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To improve health disparities, the plan also proposes that the city build or boost funding to community health clinics in neighborhoods with a high concentration of African American residents. The draft plan further recommends that the city provide free mental health, prenatal care and rehab for all Black residents who have incomes below the poverty line, are victims of violent crime, were previously incarcerated, live in high-crime areas or have substance use disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCenturies of harm should be met with centuries of repair,\u201d McDonnell, the committee chair, said at the hearing. \u201cThis is not a one and done. We have collective work to do to put folks back on the right path.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Supervisor Myrna Melgar said she felt the reparations committee had done \u201cexactly what we asked them to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis report is good. I am ready to accept it,\u201d she said in an interview Monday. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that we&#8217;re approving the $5 million for every person \u2026 But I think it\u2019s important for us to acknowledge that, as a city, we have not done right by some of our citizens.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Supervisor Dean Preston said at the hearing that he believes \u201cthe horrors of slavery upon which this country was founded\u201d warrant reparations and \u201cthe only question is how we quantify that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf the numbers seem alarmingly large to some people nationally \u2026 I would ask you not to criticize the committee for proposing large numbers, but instead to ask what these numbers say about the society that we live in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>San Francisco has a recent history of steering public money toward helping Black residents. In 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd led to nationwide outcry, Mayor London Breed and Walton pledged to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/article\/SF-spent-120-million-on-programs-for-the-Black-17114882.php\">shift tens of millions of dollars away from law enforcement<\/a>&nbsp;and toward programs that support the city\u2019s African American community. That effort, known as the Dream Keeper Initiative, was also considered by supervisors at the same hearing&nbsp;on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During more than three hours of public comments at the hearing, dozens of speakers, many of them Black native San Franciscans or longtime residents of the city, spoke out strongly in favor of continued funding for the Dream Keeper Initiative and also voiced support for the reparations plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rev. Amos Brown, a San Francisco civil rights leader and member of the committee, said the plan was necessary to address historic wrongs that had disadvantaged the city\u2019s Black population. He urged supervisors to back the principles underlying the draft plan and \u201cget into particularities later on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe house is on fire,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThe patient is dying in the intensive care unit \u2026 We must bring life to this Black community.\u201d<br><br>But in a statement released during the hearing, Brown, in his capacity as president of the San Francisco NAACP, said supervisors should not issue one-time $5 million payments. He said the city should instead focus on reparations-related investments in education, jobs, housing, health care and preserving the Fillmore Heritage Center as a Black cultural hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any serious effort to set aside funds for reparation payments would likely run into resistance due to the city\u2019s grim financial state: Officials are projecting a $728 million&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/New-data-shows-how-dire-S-F-s-budget-deficit-17657632.php\">deficit<\/a>&nbsp;over the next two fiscal years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSan Francisco doesn\u2019t have the financial wherewithal, even if we thought it was good policy, to get into the reparations payment business, but that should not truncate a conversation about ways that this society and its government should address past ills,\u201d said Peskin, the board chairman, in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peskin said he did not think lump-sum reparations payments were feasible for San Francisco right now and wanted to focus on the dozens of other long-term actions proposed in the draft plan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat is the bigger, harder conversation, and I think that we would be doing a disservice if we got lost in the politics of a one-and-done reparations payment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least two of Peskin colleagues, Supervisors Joel Engardio and Hillary Ronen, have previously&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/justinphillips\/article\/s-f-s-bold-misunderstood-reparations-proposal-17747114.php\">expressed similar views, telling The Chronicle<\/a>&nbsp;that they thought the city\u2019s budget constraints may leave it unable to afford $5 million individual reparations payments. Still, both of them spoke favorably of the committee\u2019s efforts at Tuesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Engardio, who represents the Sunset, said west San Francisco neighborhoods used to be hostile to potential Black buyers \u2014 including the Giants\u2019 legendary center fielder Willie Mays,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/chronicle_vault\/article\/Chronicle-Covers-When-Willie-Mays-was-denied-10518685.php\">who was at one point rejected when he sought to buy a west side home in 1957.<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGenerations of Black families were denied the transfer of wealth that White families benefit from as their homes increase in value,\u201d Engardio said. \u201cMany people who inherit a west side home today could not afford it on their own, but they get to stay in San Francisco because their grandparents were allowed to buy homes when it was cheap.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet vocal conservative opponents of San Francisco\u2019s reparations plan remain. John Dennis, the chairman of San Francisco\u2019s Republican Party, was blunt in his criticism of the potential reparations payments,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/abc7news.com\/amp\/black-reparations-sf-proposal-five-million-dollar-reparation-san-francisco-african-american-advisory-committee\/12716688\/\">telling ABC7<\/a>&nbsp;that the cash contribution idea was \u201cludicrous on its face\u201d and nonsensical in the context of the city\u2019s already massive budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>McDonnell, the committee chair, said members understood that not all of the actions they were recommending could be implemented immediately. But he said some form of cash payments to the city\u2019s Black residents should happen sooner rather than later.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhether it\u2019s the full $5 million or not, financial repair should be included,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you consider all of the ways in which the systems and practices have been managed to exclude and steal, if you will, the opportunities for financial mobility \u2014 families are hurting and have been for decades, if not longer. Financial repair is time sensitive. That is not one that can or should wait.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reach J.D. Morris: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @thejdmorris<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Written By <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/author\/jd-morris\/\" target=\"_blank\">J.D. Morris<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thejdmorris\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>J.D. Morris covers San Francisco City Hall, focused on the Board of Supervisors. He joined The Chronicle in 2018 to cover energy and spent three years writing mostly about PG&amp;E and California wildfires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before coming to The Chronicle, he reported on local government for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, where he was among the journalists awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the 2017 North Bay wildfires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was previously the casino industry reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Raised in Monterey County and Bakersfield, he has a bachelor\u2019s degree in rhetoric from UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/img\/logos\/black\/logo.svg\" alt=\"San Francisco Chronicle Homepage - Site Logo\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/img\/core\/hearst_newspapers_logo.svg\" alt=\"HEARST newspapers logo\">\u00a92023 Hearst Communications, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J.D. Morris March 14, 2023 Updated: March 15, 2023 4:37\u00a0p.m. (SFChronicle.com) San Francisco legislators have shown broad support for a&nbsp;draft plan&nbsp;to provide&nbsp;reparations to the city\u2019s Black community, but they have not yet decided the fate of the most ambitious recommendation:&nbsp;$5 million lump-sum payments&nbsp;to an unknown number of eligible recipients. After&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/03\/16\/how-first-hearing-on-s-f-reparations-proposal-to-pay-some-black-residents-5-million-went\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[232],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25511,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25510\/revisions\/25511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}