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San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors convened a meeting on Tuesday to discuss a draft plan that includes a $5 million lump-sum payment to eligible black residents.
The plan also recommends eliminating personal debt and tax burdens, and guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years for an undetermined number of black citizens in addition to the hefty check. The proposal also permits black families to buy homes in the costly city for just $1.
The reparations plan aims to address centuries of enslavement and systemic racism that have disadvantaged black citizens in education, economy, and other sectors of American life.
According to Supervisor Shamann Walton, who has been leading the board’s efforts to develop the reparations plan since 2020, the negative effects of slavery and negative policies across the country, including San Francisco, can be traced back to wrongs against black folks.
The Board of Supervisors is not expected to make any decisions regarding the 100 recommendations in the plan, including the highly controversial $5 million-per-person payments, until its final report is released in June.
Critics have slammed the proposal as impossible on multiple levels, particularly financially, as San Francisco is facing a deep deficit amid a tech industry downturn.
To be initially eligible, applicants must be at least 18 and have identified as black on public documents for a decade.
They must also prove that they meet two out of eight additional standards, such as being born in or having migrated to San Francisco between 1940 and 1996, proof of residency for at least 13 years, or being personally or a direct descendant of someone jailed in the “failed War on Drugs” or someone enslaved before 1865.
The state of California is also considering its reparations proposal, which would cut $360,000 checks for every eligible black citizen, costing as much as $640 billion, but there was no word on how the state would fund it.
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