Evanston Reparations To Include Option Of Direct Cash Payment

EVANSTON, IL — Direct cash payouts will soon be an option for recipients of the nation's municipal reparations program for Black residents after the Evanston City Council on Monday unanimously approved an amendment to the Restorative Housing Program.

First approved in March 2021, the housing program provides for grants of up to $25,000 for Black residents, with funding allocated from the first $10 million city's share of recreational cannabis sales tax revenue.

Last year, the city selected the first 16 eligible recipients via a lottery, starting with those deemed "ancestors" — Black residents of Evanston prior to its 1969 fair housing ordinance.

Fourteen of them have been able to use the money on housing projects, either for home improvements, mortgage payments or to grant to beneficiaries. But the other two have been unable to receive the money.

Kenneth Wideman and his sister, Sheila, do not own real estate or have direct beneficiaries. At last month's meeting of the Evanston Reparations Committee, Wideman said city staff had told him he and his sister were about to be removed from the reparations eligibility list.

"If you could make some changes, or help my sister and I, since we don't have no property, to be able to get something out of the reparations before we are eliminated," said Wideman, a Vietnam veteran and former janitorial worker at Northwestern University.

"Everybody maybe has gotten their money, maybe," he told the committee at its Feb. 2 meeting. "But we have not received anything since we don't have any property, and I just want some kind of possibly, reparations, in some kind of form that will help my sister and I out."

Then, at a March 16 special meeting, the Reparations Committee voted unanimously to recommend the City Council amend the program to include another option.

Assistant City Attorney Mari Johnson told committee members that it was more difficult to connect a direct cash payment than home improvement grants to the harm of pre-1969 housing discrimination.

"The city will need to have actuarial evidence that shows the remedy is related to the harm. So for the original housing program, having the limited options of renovation, paying down a mortgage and passing it down to beneficiaries was to actually tie the harm to the remedy," Johnson said.

"By offering a standalone cash payment option as a fourth option — and not an option that's in lieu of declining because they don't meet the other three requirements — we're effectually creating a standalone cash payment program, which is an option, preferably as a separate program, with the advice that we garner that actuarial evidence that we need," the attorney said.

"So that's the danger of creating a standalone cash payment option under the restorative housing program, is that we don't necessarily have that actuarial evidence to say that flat-out cash is related to harm."

Robin Rue Simmons, the presiding committee member and sponsor of the housing grant program, asked fellow committee members not to forget the program had already faced threats of legal challenges.

"We are really not going to solve all of the harms of Black Evanston with this initial program, which we have already designed, implemented, opened up an application process and set a standard," Rue Simmons said.

Rue Simmons, the former 5th Ward alderman and local property manager who spearheaded the creation of the housing grant program, is also the founder and executive director of the reparations-focused nonprofit First Repair.

"We did a lot of work to establish the first program, which I believe we should disburse in the way it was articulated and those that signed up to the program or applied for the program," she said. "Let's not throw out the 600-some-odd applications that came in with the program designed as it was."

The newest member of the Reparations Committee, 2nd Ward Ald. Krissie Harris, who was appointed last year by Mayor Daniel Biss and is seeking a full term on the City Council in next month's municipal elections, also expressed concerns about adding a direct cash payout option before also voting in favor of it.

"It's under scrutiny," Harris said. "It's under scrutiny by a variety of people who want this to go well, people who want it to go well but have difference of options, and I just want to make sure that the precedents, the rules, the guidelines that we set, we're following, and that we're not breaking those rules, we're not breaking legal ramifications and we're not breaking the trust of our community in which we're trying to serve."

Ald. Devon Reid has long advocated for the addition of the cash option and sponsored the amendment in the reparations committee.

"Particularly for the ancestors, this is the group that directly lived through this period of harm, I think giving them direct cash benefits does not change any concerns about the program overall, and if anything it just expedites us getting these funds out to folks," Reid said at the the committee meeting.

The 8th Ward councilmember said he did not want to add additional work for city staff to verify whether those who opt for cash payments may have been able to use a housing grant or pass it on to a beneficiary. So far six of the more than 120 eligible senior citizens had died before they money could be paid out.

"I think we should trust our ancestors, trust the folks who've lived through this period of harm and allow them — without jumping through hoops — choose the fourth option of direct cash payment, which is the most efficient way to get this repair to folks," Reid said, "so that we're not losing more seniors, or ancestors, we're not losing more and more of them while they're waiting to have this repair distributed to them."

Cannabis tax revenue has accrued slower than city officials expected, and state laws limiting disclosure of sales taxes collected from individual businesses has made it difficult to determine how much money is available in the city's reparations fund, which has so far disbursed less than $330,000 of the $10 million pledged to the program.

The lone "no" vote on the City Council when the program came up for final approval, former 9th Ward Ald. Cicely Fleming, had also called for cash payments to be included in the program. At the time, she said it was inappropriate not to give Black Evanstonians the same discretion as recipients of other reparations programs.

"In no instance, looking at those historical practices, have people been denied cash payments or the opportunity to decide how the repair would be managed," Fleming said at the time. "This practice alone can be based in what some might call white paternalistic narratives, where Black folks aren't able to manage their own money."

But at least one of the 14 residents eligible for reparations who have already received a housing grant disagrees.

Louis Weathers, 88, opposes giving people the option of direct cash payments.

"They should have some stipulations that will help the city in housing. Something that will help the value of my property stay stable or go up,” Weathers told CNN. “Giving people cash isn’t a good idea unless you put it in a trust, and you can only get so much each year.”

On Monday, without debate and as part of the consent agenda, councilmembers approved one resolution amending the existing program to approve cash payments and another directing the committee to create another program that would allow recipients to receive direct cash payment as a form of reparation.

"The new initiative would develop a new cash benefits program focused on repairing the harm to Black Evanstonians caused by racial prejudice, exclusion from living in other parts of the City, and inaction by the City," according to a memo from Tasheik Kerr, assistant to the city manager. "This program would be in addition to the directives of [the 2019 resolution that] authorized reparations programs for housing and economic development."