North Cook News

The City of Evanston is poised to become the first in the country to award reparations to black residents.

The Evanston City Council voted two years ago in favor of a measure that would use revenue from a 3% tax collected on the sale of recreational cannabis, community donations and a city-established reparations fund to fund the program.

The fund has pledged to distribute $10 million by 2030.

City officials recently decided the first $400,000 would be used to address housing needs, which include provided grants of up to $25,000 to residents to use towards the purchase of a home, home improvements or mortgage assistance. To qualify residents are required to have either lived in the city or be a direct descendent of a black person who lived there from 1919 to 1969.

"Reparations is the most appropriate legislative response to the historic practices and the contemporary conditions of the Black community,” Ald. Robin Rue Simmons, who introduced the legislation, told Zero Hedge.

“And although many of the anti-Black policies have been outlawed, many remain embedded in policy, including zoning and other government practices," Simmons added. "We are in a time in history where this nation more broadly has not only the will and awareness of why reparations is due, but the heart to advance it."

If approved, Simmons said the policy could go into effect as early as this summer.