San Francisco considers giving Black residents $5 million each in reparations

According to reports, San Francisco is considering reparations for its Black residents.

TMZ reported that San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors comprising 11 members, heard a recent proposal that was presented by a reparations committee that was formed a few years ago at the request of the City after George Floyd protests across the country.

Part of the discussions on how to correct things that were wrong with the African-American community includes $5 million per eligible Black resident.

The criteria include being at least 18 years old and identifying as Black/African-American in public documents for a minimum of 10 years.

There’s more that beneficiaries could get under the draft reparations plan. In addition to the one-off $5M payout, the committee recommended a guaranteed basic income thereafter in the sum of $97,000 every year, for 250 years.

Also, they will have all their debts and tax burdens cleared and they might get a single-family San Francisco home for just a buck. It seems every family would be allowed to buy just one, though it’s not entirely clear.

The reparations committee didn’t have any answers to how this can be paid for. They place that burden on the supervisors but the BOS, in turn, actually backed the proposal unanimously and said funding would be figured out later.

Shamann Walton, the only black supervisor of the Board, has been leading the charge on this and says he wants the reparations package to be included in future budgets of the City.

Everybody did not agree with the terms laid out by the committee which comprises Black leaders/community members in and around San Francisco. An opponent is the NAACP which, while backing the idea of reparations, is not in sync with the $5M cash payouts and instead called for the focus of investment to be in institutions, like schools/housing.