Cincinnati Considers Marijuana Tax To Fund Reparations Program for Residents in Predominately Black Neighborhoods

Cincinnati is considering a taxpayer-funded reparations program aimed at correcting years of housing discrimination targeting black residents, but claims any payments that go out will not be race-based.The city council is expected to discuss the Cincinnati Real Property Reparations Program at a meeting Wednesday afternoon. The legislation — introduced last month by the city’s vice mayor, Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney, and councilman Scotty Johnson — would “create the opportunity for Cincinnati’s residents to build wealth by having the means to own and preserve ownership in real property.”The plan would provide financial assistance for purchasing a home, delinquency property tax assistance, and emergency property repairs to residents in neighborhoods known as the Rising 15 — a group of neighborhoods with a majority of black residents or large black populations.Cincinnati has a long history of housing discrimination. Zoning laws, discriminatory lending practices by banks, and real estate agents who steered minority homebuyers away from white-majority neighborhoods for generations have created highly segregated neighborhoods.The reparations assistance would be for low-to-moderate income residents and “any individual or family member of an individual who was prevented from buying a home due to discriminatory practices.”The proposal is vague and does not lay out qualifications for applicants or how much would be awarded. Despite the wording, one of the sponsors claims the program would not be race-based but simply targeting low income residents. “Let’s repair some of the damage done to low-income communities that kept the residents from owning homes and other real estate and prevented building of generational wealth,” Ms. Kearney told the Cincinnati Enquirer.A group called Cincinnati Black United Front has pushed the city for years to pay reparations and reduce what it calls a racial wealth gap in the city.The initial funding of $5 million for the reparations program would come from a marijuana sales tax and other undefined sources.Cincinnati is joining a growing list of cities pursuing reparations programs. The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois became the first locality to run a reparations program, but the road has been rocky. The six-year-old program has not received as much funding as expected from a 3 percent sales tax on recreational marijuana sales in the city of 75,000. The program had to suspend making payments last year due to a lack of funding but new payments are expected to take place this year.The Evanston reparations program is also being sued because only black residents were allowed to apply. The conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch filed the suit on behalf of six residents claiming the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because of the city’s use of race as an eligibility requirement to seek payments.Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, and St. Paul are in various stages of studying or implementing their own reparations programs. California, Maryland, and New York are considering reparations at the state level.

Cincinnati Considers Marijuana Tax To Fund Reparations Program for Residents in Predominately Black Neighborhoods

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