SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco lawmakers have approved a new ordinance creating a “Reparations Fund” meant to support and implement elements of the city’s sweeping reparations agenda for Black residents, a step supporters framed as progress, and critics warned could become symbolic unless real money follows.
The Board of Supervisors gave final approval on Tuesday to legislation that establishes a framework for collecting future dollars, either through city appropriations or private donations.
Under the ordinance, the fund can receive “any legally available” appropriations or donations, and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission is tasked with administering the money. Spending is restricted to supporting and implementing recommendations described in the city’s “San Francisco Reparations Plan 2023.”
The measure is the latest chapter in a years-long process that drew national attention in 2023, when the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee released a plan with more than 100 recommendations, including proposals as large as $5 million lump-sum payments for eligible individuals and broad relief tied to housing and debt.
San Francisco is currently facing a major budget squeeze, with Mayor Daniel Lurie seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in spending cuts amid a projected multi-year deficit.
Supervisor Shamann Walton, the ordinance’s author, said the fund represents a practical first step toward implementation. “It’s going to take some time. We’ve got to build a pot,” Walton told ABC7.
The ordinance itself points to the harms the reparations plan is intended to address, including displacement connected to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency’s urban renewal activities between 1954 and 1973.
Black residents make up roughly 5% of San Francisco today but account for a much larger share of the city’s sheltered and unsheltered homeless population.
Still, the vote is unlikely to settle the core debate that has followed San Francisco’s reparations effort since it entered the national spotlight: whether the city will ever fund direct payments at scale, how eligibility will be determined, and what “repair” should look like in policy terms.
The ordinance says reparations funding is intended for those who are Black and/or descendants of enslaved people who can show a “proven harm” in San Francisco.
