Evanston has paid out $6.8 million to more than 250 residents, but bad policy choices ensure its housing crisis persists.
Since becoming the first U.S. city to offer reparations to black residents for past housing discrimination, Evanston, Ill., has doled out $6.8 million in payments to more than 250 residents — but critics say the program has done little to address the underlying causes of the city’s housing crisis that impacts residents of all races.
Under the reparations program, individuals who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 — or who are the descendants of a resident who lived in the city during that time period — are eligible to receive $25,000. While the payments were initially restricted to funds for housing costs, including down payments, repairs, or repayment of penalties to the city, the city later expanded the program to include $25,000 direct cash payments.
Proponents of the reparations program argue the past housing policies have denied black families the opportunity to build generational wealth through home ownership. Black residents account for 16 percent of the city’s population.
After passing the resolution committing to local reparations in 2019, the city worked with the Shorefront Legacy Center, a local community archive, to collect “evidence of city practices and policies that had adversely impacted the Black community,” according to the Mellon Foundation.
Shorefront Legacy Center founder Morris Robinson and independent researcher Jenny Thompson authored a 77-page report that “revealed how a system of redlining, restrictive covenants, racist zoning ordinances, and other segregationist practices — in some cases even forcibly removing entire homes from white neighborhoods — restricted Black residents to the city’s Fifth Ward.”
By the late 1930s, 95 percent of Fifth Ward residents were black. Much of the housing in the area lacked electricity, water or sewers, according to the report.
But no matter the reparations program’s intentions, Illinois Policy Institute assistant editor Dylan Sharkey tells National Review, the payments fail to address the city’s very real housing crisis that prevents residents of all races from achieving homeownership.
“Evanston’s reparations program is designed to provide relief through down payment and mortgage assistance, as Evanston is one of the most expensive places in the state to own a home,” he said. “Yet, the problem persists across the city and state. Illinois’ property taxes are among the highest in the nation, primarily driven by state and local pension debt. The typical homeowner in Evanston pays more than $7,000 a year in property taxes, which adds to the premium.”
“It’s hard for nearly anyone in the area to own a home,” he added. “Regardless of pending litigation related to reparations, Evanston and state leaders must work on addressing high housing costs. They should look at root causes that even the playing field for all – allowing more kinds of housing units, reducing overly burdensome housing regulations and encouraging the state to enact pension reform.”
Meanwhile, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch has sued the city over the $20 million reparations program, arguing in a class action lawsuit that it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“The program’s use of a race-based eligibility requirement is presumptively unconstitutional, and remedying societal discrimination is not a compelling government interest,” attorneys for Judicial Watch wrote in a court filing. “Nor has remedying discrimination from as many as 105 years ago or remedying intergenerational discrimination ever been recognized as a compelling government interest. Among the program’s other fatal flaws is that it uses race as a proxy for discrimination without requiring proof of discrimination.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton argues the city “must be stopped before it spends even more money on this clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional reparations program.”
The city did not respond to a request for comment from National Review.
Meanwhile, Evanston leaders appear determined to see reparations spread to other cities, and they say that even in Evanston, the payments are just the beginning of righting a historic wrong.
Robin Rue Simmons, chairwoman of the Evanston Reparations Committee, previously told PBS that, in 2023, representatives of the city held an official side event at the United Nations “sharing the model” of reparations. Evanston’s program is funded by the city’s real estate transfer tax and tax revenue from recreational marijuana purchases.
Simmons said there are more than 100 localities that have “taken a first step towards reparations for their community.”
Although other municipalities have since passed resolutions forming task forces to explore the possibility of forming reparations programs, Evanston is the only city in the country to actually distribute funds.
“A couple of years ago, when the [reparations program in Evanston] took effect, the media was talking about how this was the first in the nation, you would see a lot more reparations programs similar to it,” Judicial Watch senior attorney Michael Bekesha told NR. But since Judicial Watch sued over the program a year and a half ago “you haven’t seen any other cities or states implement a program.”
“I think other cities would be interested in undertaking a similar program, but they’re kind of waiting to see what happens in our lawsuit,” he added.
The city of Evanston has filed a motion to dismiss Judicial Watch’s lawsuit. A hearing on the motion was scheduled for September 26, but it was canceled by the court the night before. It has not yet been rescheduled.
Despite the program’s $20 million price tag, Simmons has said that reparations payments alone are “not enough.”
“We all know that the road to repair and justice in the Black community is going to be a generation of work. It’s going to be many programs and initiatives and more funding,” she said, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss seemed to echo that conclusion in comments to PBS in 2023.
“There’s a long waiting list of ancestors behind them,” he said at the time. “There is a long waiting list of descendants. And behind them are a lot of other people in this community who were mistreated or whose ancestors were mistreated by the city government through policies the city government deliberately enacted. And we have a lot of work to do.”