Detroit’s Reparations Task Force, the first of its kind for the city, submitted its long-anticipated report of recommendations to the City Council.
Detroit’s Reparations Task Force, the first of its kind for the city, submitted its long-anticipated report of recommendations to the City Council.
The task force, created through a 2021 voter-approved ballot initiative, recommends programs to repair harms and compensate African American residents for historically unjust city policies. Key proposals include cash payments and housing grants for eligible Detroiters, expanding African-centered education, firing “high-risk” police officers and ending water shutoffs for delinquent bills.
Details of the report were shared with BridgeDetroit after it was submitted to the City Council at the end of October. The full document is available online here.
The task force recommended three criteria to determine who is eligible to receive compensation through reparations programs:
1. A descendant of an African enslaved in the U.S. or in the diaspora
2. At least 21 years old
3. A current resident of Detroit who has been a Detroit resident for at least 20 years
The 13-member body was formed in 2023 and spent the last two years crafting the report. Members were granted several deadline extensions along the way; the report was originally due in 2024.
The task force documented “historical atrocities” inflicted on African American residents since before Detroit’s founding. Recommended policies are the culmination of dozens of meetings and hundreds of hours of discussion.
“We have been guided as a Task Force by our understanding that the wealth and imperialist power of the United States may be attributed directly to profits generated by the enslavement of our ancestors – through the slave trade, chattel slavery, peonage, and prison labor,” the report states. “In colonial America and the United States, extraction of Black labor and the violence with which this extraction was conducted, ensured the accumulation of wealth by whites, so that their heirs today continue to enjoy economic security and prosperity.”
The final product tackles a broad range of issues and suggests a multitude of new investments. Some changes are within the city’s power, like creating grants, while others require changes in state law, like ending qualified immunity for police.
It’s unclear how much reparations programs would cost. The task force recommends finding revenue by creating a downtown entertainment tax, an additional fee on casino revenue and a $5 million fund for neighborhood corridor development. It also suggests clawing back tax breaks from developers that fail to meet benchmarks and creating a new fee on city contracts.
A reparations administrative office is recommended to ensure accountability and long-term success. It would be overseen by an independent board of appointed residents and charged with administering reparations payments, establishing programs, tracking outcomes and coordinating public feedback.
The task force was charged with suggesting policies, not implementing them. The City Council will decide what to do with the recommendations.
Project Manager Evan Daugherty said the task force hopes to hold public discussions on the report but can’t take action without the City Council extending the task force. Their business ended Oct. 31, he said, though the council could ask members to stay on longer to roll out the recommendations to residents.
Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield introduced legislation that established the reparations effort. Chief of Staff Brian White said Tuesday that her team is still reviewing the report.
Detroit’s task force builds on decades of local advocacy from figures like “Reparations Ray” Jenkins and U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., who pushed for federal reparations. The report acknowledges reparations were historically paid to other groups, including Japanese Americans who were interred during World War II, Holocaust victims and even former slave owners.
The city’s 2021 ballot initiative established a task force to suggest housing and economic development programs that address historic discrimination. Unlike past efforts, the task force is focused on seeking municipal reparations to repair harms caused by the City of Detroit.
“The devastating consequence of Detroit municipal policies over the last 50 years has been the handing over of City governance to corporate control,” the report states. “There has been intensive development of the downtown core — to the neglect of traditional neighborhoods, and the concession of the people’s valuable assets, such as the Water and Sewerage Department and Belle Isle, to suburban and State interests.”
The task force laments that city policies “reflect the same racial and political biases that characterized policies of previous eras” despite most city leaders being African Americans. It argues city leaders stood by as thousands of residents lost their homes through illegal overassessment and have not held corporations accountable for delivering benefits negotiated in tax abatement agreements.
“Our City leaders have surrendered their authority to the corporate establishment and entities like the Detroit Downtown Development Authority, leaving the welfare of neighborhood communities unattended and underfunded,” the report states. “Now Detroit consists of two cities, one thriving, the other neglected and plundered.”
Here’s a summary of recommendations:
Housing
A reparations office would distribute housing grants worth up to $40,000 in down payment assistance and up to $30,000 for home repairs.
The task force recommended building at least 1,000 new housing units for African Americans that are affordable for someone making 50% of the area median income ($35,350). It called for creating rent control policies and renovating vacant properties into shelters for unhoused residents.
The task force wants to end the transfer of city-owned land to the Detroit Land Bank Authority and establish a new redevelopment program that prioritizes residents. The task force also wants to stop delinquent water bills from becoming a lien on property and eliminate sewage fees.
The report recommends refunding African American property owners who lost homes to tax foreclosure with money from auction sales.
It recommends freezing property taxes for residents who were over assessed by the city.
Economic development
The task force recommends providing up to $100,000 in grants for businesses displaced by urban renewal projects. It suggests creating other grants for co-ops, start-ups, grocery stores and community-based businesses.
It recommends building 10 new commercial strip malls that provide five years of rent-free space for African American–owned businesses. Commercial areas should be designated as tax increment financing zones, according to the task force, allowing tax revenues to be reinvested within the zone.
City contracts should give more preference to African American-owned businesses, according to the report. Recommendations call for free post-secondary training for skilled trades careers and online financial literacy courses.
The report also calls for giving city-owned land to local farmers to support community food networks.
Policing and law enforcement
The task force proposed recommendations to address ongoing issues with police misconduct. It includes paying restitution to people injured or killed by police, ending qualified immunity, and firing “high risk” officers identified by the Detroit Police Department and officers who shoot unarmed citizens.
The task force recommends hiring more Black residents at DPD and in local courts to better reflect the city’s racial demographics. It calls for adding staff to process citizen complaints against police officers and create a permanent archive for police body camera footage.
The report calls for dissolving a DPD command center that monitors school campuses across the city. It also seeks to dismantle the “One Detroit” violent crime initiative, a partnership between local law enforcement and federal agencies like the DEA, AFT and FBI. The task force argued the partnership “represses citizens in an overlay of multiple surveillance and policing operations,” while city leaders credit it for decreasing violent crime.
Funding should be increased for community violence intervention, DPD’s mental health co-response unit and other restorative justice programs, according to the report.
Water and sewerage
Unaffordable water bills have caused residents to live in unsanitary conditions and lose their homes, according to the report. The task force calls for a moratorium on residential water shutoffs and a new affordability program that doesn’t charge residents more than 3% of their household income.
The task force calls for renegotiating a $50 million annual lease with the Great Lakes Water Authority and the terms of its service agreement to create a more equitable cost-sharing scheme. The report highlights how Detroit pays 83% of sewerage system costs, while suburban residents pay 17%.
Education
Decades of disinvestment, state-imposed emergency management and racially biased funding formulas left the Detroit Public Schools Community District unable to meet the needs of its predominantly African American student population, according to the task force.
Reparations school grants are recommended to fund STEM fellowships, free high-speed internet for students and other academic, athletic and mental health programs. The task force also suggested finding new uses for shuttered school buildings.
The report recommends lobbying the state Legislature for funding to reduce class sizes, upgrade school infrastructure, hire more African American teachers and introduce educators to African-centered education.
Quality of life
The task force aims to rebuild the foundations of health, environment and food access in neighborhoods.
The report sets a goal for creating 100 acres of community-controlled agricultural land by 2035.
It recommends creating a food sovereignty fund to support Black-owned grocers, co-ops, kitchens and food markets. The task force suggests dedicating vacant city land as food distribution centers and offering funding to grocers that open in food deserts.
The task force recommends creating “environmental reparations zones” in polluted census tracts to coordinate environmental monitoring and clean up.
Detroit’s high rate of asthma hospitalization and toxic air quality poses a major threat to the wellbeing of residents, according to the report. The task force hopes to cut emergency room visits due to asthma in half within a decade. Possible solutions include in-home air filters, ongoing air quality monitoring and creating buffer zones between homes and industrial facilities.
Cultural institutions
The task force recommends creating an Office of African American Cultural Programs to support the arts. This includes historic preservation projects, grants for galleries and studios, plus efforts to rename public sites in honor of significant African American leaders.
This story was originally published by BridgeDetroit and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
