San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie signed legislation establishing a reparations fund for black residents on Dec. 23, just two days before Christmas.
The move has sparked intense debate across the city.
The ordinance creates a Reparations Fund as recommended by the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee in its 2023 report.
The legislation establishes the fund’s framework but does not currently allocate any taxpayer money to it.
The fund sets up a structure for future contributions, whether from city sources or private donations.
The signing followed a vote by the city’s Board of Supervisors approximately one week earlier, which approved the measure unanimously.
According to the African American Reparations Advisory Committee’s website, the organization is charged with developing “recommendations for repairing harm in our black communities.”
The committee released a comprehensive report in 2023 detailing its proposals.
The 2023 report recommended that every African American adult in San Francisco receive a $5 million lump sum payment.
The report stated this amount would “compensate the affected population for the decades of harms that they have experienced.”
Beyond the $5 million payment proposal, the committee outlined more than 100 additional recommendations.
These suggestions included debt relief, a guaranteed annual income of $97,000, debt forgiveness and city-funded homes for black residents.
In 2023, the Hoover Institution analyzed the financial implications of the plan.
The conservative think tank estimated the proposal would cost each non-African American household in San Francisco approximately $600,000 in tax dollars.
Mayor Lurie addressed concerns about funding in a statement to the Daily Mail.
He acknowledged the work of communities and government officials who have engaged with the issue over several years.
“For several years, communities across the city have been working with the government to acknowledge the decades of harm done to San Francisco’s black community,” Lurie wrote.
He noted that while the process began before his administration, he signed the legislation recognizing the work done and the Board of Supervisors’ unanimous support.
The mayor emphasized San Francisco’s current financial constraints.
The city faces a projected $1 billion budget deficit for the upcoming year, requiring officials to prioritize funding for essential services.
“Given these historic fiscal challenges, the city does not have resources to allocate to this fund,” Lurie explained.
He stated his administration remains open to private funding sources and would facilitate distribution to eligible recipients if such funding materialized legally.
The legislation’s passage drew criticism from several quarters.
Conservative activist Richie Greenberg called the fund a “terribly disappointing decision” on social media platform X. During his podcast, Greenberg characterized the measure as a “reparations scheme” that is “ludicrously unlawful, irresponsible, illegal [and] unconstitutional.”
Opinion journalist Erica Sandberg criticized the decision’s timing and process on her Substack.
“After large-scale No Kings protests in the summer of 2025 that condemned authoritarian policies from the Trump administration, local officials making such a unilateral decision that is clearly at odds with public sentiment is hypocritical,” she wrote.
