Cincinnati Weighs $5M Housing Reparations Plan To Address Decades Of Discriminatory Policies

Cincinnati lawmakers are exploring housing reparations to address decades of discriminatory policies that prevented many Black residents from owning property.

By Robert Hill

Cincinnati lawmakers are exploring housing reparations to address decades of discriminatory policies that prevented many Black residents from owning property.

Cincinnati officials are expected to examine a newly proposed program, the Cincinnati Real Property Reparations Program, in March. The proposal, introduced Feb. 19, aims to help Black residents within 15 of Cincinnati’s 52 neighborhoods become eligible for financial assistance when obtaining property.

Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney and Councilman Scotty Johnson are working together to introduce the legislation before Cincinnati’s all-Democratic City Council. If established, the program would require the city to invest an initial $5 million, using proceeds from the recreational marijuana tax and funds from the city’s capital budget.

The goal of the program is meant to repair years of damage caused by past racial- and income-based discriminatory policies that stop Black families from building generational wealth. Benefits from this program include assistance for down payments, delinquent property taxes, and emergency repairs.

Kearney and Johnson’s motion do not outline specific eligibility requirements but calls for city officials to provide evidence of how funds are distributed. The program is not race-based but focuses on those in low-income communities who have impacted by discriminatory policies.

“Let’s repair some of the damage done to low-income communities that kept the residents from owning homes and other real estate and prevented building of generational wealth,” Kearney said to the The Enquirer.

Kearney and Johnson provided evidence of historic policies in Cincinnati that restricted where Black residents could live, including the 1920s Cincinnati Real Estate Board rule that prohibited people of color from selling and renting homes in white and suburban neighborhoods.

They also noted redlining practices that made it difficult for Black people to obtain home loans.

Those supporting Kearney and Johnson, including the Cincinnati chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), encourage others to focus on the goal rather than the word “reparations.”

“I think people get confused and caught up with the word ‘reparation,’” Whitehead said to the outlet. “It’s restoring people that have been unfairly treated.”

Although the motion does not list specific neighborhoods, it focuses on residents in the “Rising 15 neighborhoods,” which are based on median income and are predominantly Black or have large Black populations.

The motion is set to appear before the council on Mar. 4.