(The Center Square) – The Cincinnati City Council this week could consider a proposal to spend $5 million in tax revenue from marijuana sales on reparations for housing discrimination in the city.
The program would be called The Cincinnati Real Property Reparations Program under the proposal by Vice Mayor Jan-Michell Lemon Kearney and council member Scotty Johnson.
The purpose would be to “create the opportunity for Cincinnati’s residents to build wealth by having the means to own and preserve ownership in real property,” the proposed ordinance states. The funds could be used for commercial or residential property, for down payment assistance, delinquent property taxes or emergency repairs.
It would be available to residents in 15 neighborhoods, low- to moderate-income residents or “to any individual or family members of an individual who was prevented from buying a home due to discrimination.”
Cincinnati has a long history of discrimination in housing, the legislation’s sponsor said.
In the 1920s, the Cincinnati Real Estate Board issued an edict that “no agent shall rent or sell property to colored people in an established white section,” the sponsors said in a statement.
In the 1930s, the federal government engaged in a practice of “redlining,” which singled out Black neighborhoods as high risk, limiting home ownership in those areas, the sponsors said.
In 1944, many black veterans were denied loans under the G.I. bill passed by Congress in 1944, according to the sponsors.
“Now is the time to repair the damage done by racial and income-based housing discrimination,” the sponsors wrote.
The proposal could be considered at Wednesday’s meeting of the Cincinnati City Council. If it passes, Cincinnati would be the latest city to adopt a reparations policy for housing.
The Chicago suburb of Evanston, adopted a housing reparations program in 2019.
It also uses funds from the cannabis tax to fund the program.
“Reparations, and any process for restorative relief, must connect between the harm imposed and the City,” Evanston says on its website. “The strongest case for reparations by the City of Evanston is in the area of housing, where there is sufficient evidence showing the City’s part in housing discrimination as a result of early City zoning ordinances in place between 1919 and 1969, when the City banned housing discrimination.”
