Santa Monica Establishes $3.5 Million Reparations Fund Despite ‘Dire’ Financial Outlook

A California city is moving forward with funding a reparations program despite already warning that the city reserves are running dry.The Santa Monica City Council on Tuesday approved the launch of a $3.5 million Restorative Justice Fund. The city touts it as “one of the largest locally funded restorative justice initiatives of its kind.”Backers say the goal of the fund is to address “historically rooted harm” to black residents caused by the government in the past. The city is also creating a Restorative Justice Commission to oversee the program.The initial seed money for the fund comes from the Rand Corporation under an agreement that allows the nonprofit research organization to lease or sell significant portions of its underutilized headquarters building in the city. Rand is set to hand over another $2 million nder the deal in 2028, but city officials have not decided whether that money will be added to the reparations fund.“Santa Monica is choosing repair over rhetoric,” Mayor Caroline Torosis said in a statement. “With an initial $3.5 million investment and a clear, transparent process, the program Council approved reflects our commitment to doing the hard work of restorative justice with care and accountability.”The council action follows the city’s $350,000 settlement with a family in a decades-old case that involved a black entrepreneur who leased a building with plans to buy it and create a black social club. Shortly after the man started making payments, the city seized the building through eminent domain, claiming it was needed for a redevelopment project.The city issued a formal apology to its black residents for decades of discrimination in 2022, but said an apology without reparations was not good enough.The new fund comes despite the city having declared itself in fiscal distress in September. The city council cited financial strain from $229 million in settlements of sexual abuse cases linked to a former city worker involved in youth programs. The city also said a sharp decline in revenue since the start of the pandemic had eaten into reserve funds. City leaders described the financial condition as “fairly dire.”The Restorative Justice Program is expected to launch in Santa Monica by the spring. San Francisco is planning its own handout of reparations payments to black residents despite financial woes. Mayor Daniel Lurie signed an ordinance establishing a fund earlier this month but the city has not figured out where the money will come from.In 2023, an advisory committee proposed a $5 million payment to every eligible black adult in the city. The plan sparked outrage after the Hoover Institution pegged the cost of the recommendations at nearly $600,000 per San Francisco taxpaying household.At the state level, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law to create a Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery but has vetoed some reparations bills claiming the state can’t afford them.The Chicago suburb of Evanston became the first American city to fund reparations. The $20 million program was designed to hand out $25,000 payments to black residents. It stopped making payments last year after it ran into funding problems because a marijuana tax didn’t raise as much money as anticipated. It also is being sued because only black residents were allowed to apply for payments.Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and St. Paul are in various stages of studying or implementing their own reparations programs. New York is also considering reparations at the state level.

Santa Monica Establishes $3.5 Million Reparations Fund Despite ‘Dire’ Financial Outlook

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