The Justice Department is seeking to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging a Chicago suburb’s housing reparations program for Black residents, arguing it is “racially discriminatory” and unconstitutional.
The city council in Evanston, Ill., earmarked $10 million in revenue generated from cannabis sales taxes in 2019 for a first-of-its-kind local reparations program for Black residents and their direct descendants who suffered housing discrihttps://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5927763-justice-department-evanston-reparations-housing-discrimination/mination due to the city’s policies and practices between 1919 and 1969.
The Restorative Housing Program, implemented in 2021, offers those families grants of up to $25,000 that can be used to make a down payment on a home, repair property or pay interest and late penalties on property within the city.
Those who can prove they were harmed by the city’s policies and practices after 1969, when the city banned housing discrimination, may also qualify.