Part of the city’s reparations plan is to use funds from a 3 percent tax on marijuana sales to finance a $10 million initiative called the Restorative Housing Reparations program. This would oversee the distribution of $25,000 worth of housing funding per resident.
Should the housing plan pass, it would make Evanston the first city to formally issue reparations to rectify previous discriminatory housing policies.
The option of implementing reparations in the form of government investment was touted during the Black Lives Matter protests in the Summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Floyd’s death, a symbol of the centuries of racist policing and law enforcement policies in the U.S., highlighted institutional racism as an insidious and lingering artifact of a time in the country when slavery was legal.
Mayor Steve Hagerty and Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro announced Monday the $1 million Northwestern Good Neighbor Racial Equity Fund’s recipient programs.
The fund is part of Schapiro and NU leaders’ commitment beginning last September to give $1.5 million in the fiscal year to Evanston and Chicago for the purpose of advancing racial justice.
“We believe it’s crucial to focus on addressing historic social and racial injustices and their ongoing effects on our community,” Schapiro said in a city news release. “I believe this is how we can all make our greatest impact for the long-term health of our city.”
Northwestern Now
City of Evanston, Northwestern announce $1 million for minority businesses and guaranteed income pilot
Funds will help break down barriers faced by those marginalized in the community.
Evanston Mayor Stephen Hagerty and Northwestern President Morton Schapiro announced today that the first-ever $1 million allocation of the Northwestern Good Neighbor Racial Equity Fund will support a variety of bold, progressive programs aimed at strengthening underserved communities and advancing racial equity in Evanston.
This is the sixth year that Northwestern has contributed $1 million to the City of Evanston to support projects jointly agreed upon by the mayor of Evanston and the president of Northwestern and the first year where the funds will be focused entirely on dismantling systemic barriers faced by historically marginalized communities.
An East Hyde Park condo building was one of multiple locations across two cities in which three people were killed and four injured in a shooting spree that police tied to a single gunman a man who apparently had made threats in rambling videos posted to social media before the shootings and engaged with Evanston police, who fatally shot him.