San Francisco reparations committee proposes paying $5M to black residents, loan forgiveness, report

A city of San Francisco advisory committee is reportedly proposing paying every black longtime resident $5 million.

The proposal released last month by the African American Reparations Advisory Committee calls for a "one-time, lump sum payment of $5 million to each eligible person" and creates "legal structures to protect those who receive reparations from financial speculators or predators including court block accounts/trust accounts,"  according to The Daily Mail.

The proposal, if adopted, also would supplement lower-income black households to "reflect the Area Median Income annually for at least 250 years," which would have brought such incomes up to $97,000 in 2022.

The plan additionally calls for financing "a comprehensive debt forgiveness program that clears all educational, personal, credit card, payday loans, etc."

The proposal would cost the city at least $50 billion.

To be eligible for reparations payments, an individual must be 18 years or older and have identified as "Black/African American" on public documents for at least 10 years.

Additionally, they must meet at least two of eight additional requirements from a list of criteria that includes being "personally, or the direct descendant of someone, incarcerated by the failed War on Drugs" or having been born in or migrated to the city between 1940 and 1996 with proof of residency for at least 13 years.

Although California was not a slave state, the reparations would be made to "address the public policies explicitly created to subjugate Black people in San Francisco by upholding and expanding the intent and legacy of chattel slavery," the draft states.

About 5.7% of San Francisco's population in 2020 was black while black people make up 40% of the homeless population, the committee said.