The San Francisco Board of Supervisors expressed enthusiastic support on Tuesday (March 14) for the city-appointed committee’s recommendations for reparations, which included paying eligible Black adults $5 million each.
According to the Associated Press, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors heard recommendations from the city-appointed reparations committee for the first time on Tuesday. Along with the $5 million payout, the board seemingly supported other ideas proposed by the reparations committee, including eliminating personal debt and tax burdens, providing guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years, and doling out homes in San Francisco for just $1 for every eligible Black adult.
These were just a few of the more than 100 recommendations made by the reparations committee, which was formed in 2020 to figure out how to compensate Black San Franciscans for centuries of slavery and systemic racism. Those eligible for compensation would include people of at least 18 years of age who have identified as Black/African American in public documents for at least 10 years, according to a draft recommendation.
Eligible persons would then have to meet two of eight standards still subject to change, including being born in or having migrated to San Francisco between 1940 and 1996, being a descendant of or someone jailed in the “failed War on Drugs,” or being a descendant of a person enslaved before 1865.
The reparations committee hasn’t completed an official analysis of the cost of its proposal, which has been criticized by opponents as financially and politically impossible.
However, the committee still has time to mull over its recommendations, including monetary compensations, as its final report is due to the Legislature on July 1. At that point, it will be in the hands of lawmakers to draft and pass legislation.
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