Proposed spending for Providence’s still-evolving racial reparations program includes several worthy suggestions. Among them, funding for homeownership, workforce training and support for small businesses.
The proposals come from a 13-member group appointed by outgoing Mayor Jorge O. Elorza and the City Council and will be paid for with $10 million in pandemic-related federal aid.
The federal aid allowed city officials to quickly commit funding to a program that from its outset two years ago has been short on details and included limited opportunities for community involvement.
When the City Council considers the recommendations later this month, they must make clearer exactly who will be eligible and how they’ll be selected.
The $10 million already committed comes with restrictions that require some of the funding be available to those in low-income neighborhoods, regardless of race.
But it remains unclear how those residents, or others applying strictly on the basis of race, as being either Black or Indigenous, will be selected.
And going forward, the City Council must begin to define a financial scope and direction for the program so it doesn’t expand beyond the city’s means.
Members of the reparations panel have said $10 million is just a start to what will be needed to reverse longstanding, race-based discrimination. There’s merit in that argument.
Absent a federal pandemic windfall to turn to, however, the entire community must be invited to the ongoing discussion.
