Jim Vincent threw himself into the work when he was appointed to the Providence Municipal Reparations Commission in early 2022 because he saw an opportunity for justice.
Vincent, a former president of the Providence branch of the NAACP, and 12 other commission members appointed by former Mayor Jorge O. Elorza and the City Council were tasked with developing recommendations on how best to “close the present-day racial wealth and equity gap” in the capital city.
Vincent says the commission spent hundreds of hours – including nine public community meetings – assembling a spending plan for the $10 million in federal relief funds that the city had set aside for what was initially called “racial reparations.”
Proposed allocations included $1.5 million for small-business acceleration, and $1 million each for workforce training, financial literacy and homeownership programs. There were dollars dedicated to descendants of people impacted by urban renewal, to scholarships and to the development of a school curriculum outlining racism.
But 10 months after the City Council approved the spending plan, Vincent says he is perplexed, even angry, that almost all of the money remains untouched.
“As far as I can see, it’s at a standstill,” he said. “And that’s unfortunate. That money needed to be spent yesterday. The community is in crying need of these funds. The need is that great.”
The city’s reparations movement had been propelled forward by Elorza in the wake of the 2020 Minnesota police killing of George Floyd. Now Elorza is out of City Hall and the much-debated initiative more than two years in the making has nearly ground to a halt under Mayor Brett P. Smiley, according to several advocates.
In March, for instance, the administration rescinded the sole award that had been approved before Elorza left office, a $150,000 contract with the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society intended as seed funding to create a Black Policy and Equity Institute.
That same month the administration rejected bids for the creation of a resident scholarship fund and the expansion of a youth internship program.
The mayor’s office says it is undergoing a review of the reparations budget – now called the COVID-19 Equities Program – and a wider examination of how the city will spend the $166 million it is receiving from the American Rescue Plan Act.
But Smiley insists the equities program is moving forward.
“After a review of the allocations outlined in the ordinance, we have realized that there is [an] opportunity for collaboration with community partners already doing the work to better maximize these investments,” Smiley said in an emailed statement. “We found many of the specific initiatives and projects outlined within the ordinance were not adequately funded to address the critical needs they are intended for.”
To date, $270,000 has been spent, according to Smiley spokesperson Josh Estrella.
This includes $150,000 that went to the Rhode Island Black Business Association, $100,000 for AS220 and the Interlace Grant Fund to launch a “teaching artist” grant program to support artists “who were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically Indigenous and African heritage teaching artists.” The Providence-based education nonprofit Inspiring Minds also received $20,000.
“The ordinance has not changed, and dollars will be spent aligned with investments identified in the report,” Smiley said. “We recognize marginalized communities need increased access and support to resources having faced historical inequities. That’s why I believe it is my responsibility as mayor to ensure we are thoughtfully partnering with community organizations and making support accessible to the people who need it most.”
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WAITING: Providence Municipal Reparations Commission member Jim Vincent is perplexed that nearly all of the $10 million the city set aside in federal relief funds for what was initially called “racial reparations” has been largely untouched in the 10 months since the spending plan was approved.
PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY[/caption]
‘MATTER OF TRUTH’
Vincent and others are unconvinced this approach is the best way forward, noting the program has already been vetted and approved by city officials. Vincent says it would take “trillions” of dollars over decades to reverse the harm perpetuated on minority communities from redlining, disproportionate incarceration rates and employment discrimination.
“I can’t understand why there would be any kind of second look at the program. As far as I’m concerned, it’s done. There is no need to do a review,” he said. “Now we are in August. That money should have been spent in the first months of the administration.”
The reparations initiative was a long time in the making, publicly getting its start in July 2020 when the term-limited Elorza launched a three-phase process that would include “truth telling, reconciliations and reparations for African heritage and Indigenous residents.”
Two years of work by city leaders, activists and scholars, in a process that included town hall meetings, online sessions and the participation of over 25 organizations, led to the release of the “A Matter of Truth” report that informed the final recommendations by the Municipal Reparations Commission.
The commission’s assessment: Providence has the greatest overall income inequality of any city in the state and one of the highest nationwide. Black households had a 2020 median household income roughly 25% less than that of their white counterparts.
By August 2022, the commission’s report outlined a sweeping set of policies and programs the city should implement as a starting point for repairing systemic racism and bias. Not included: direct payments – traditionally associated with racial reparations.
Instead, the recommendation included making amends by helping Black, Indigenous and other eligible residents with low incomes to buy homes, start and grow businesses, and train to find jobs.
At the time, Elorza not only backed the $10 million plan but he used the opportunity to issue a formal apology for the city’s role in slavery, urban renewal and discrimination.
Soon there were hiccups.
City officials acknowledged that the proposed services and programs intended to atone for centuries of racism and race-based discrimination would be open to residents who live in low-income neighborhoods or make very little money, regardless of their race, because the $10 million in ARPA money came with strict guidelines on how it could be used.
Then the City Council cut funding for a home repair program, legal defense fund and an extension of the guaranteed income pilot program, instead shifting that combined $1.75 million into a new COVID-19 Equity Fund to be administered by United Way of Rhode Island Inc.
Support was almost unanimous with the revised ordinance passed by the City Council last November in a 10-1 vote.
Now not many want to talk about it.
Elorza, who is CEO of the New York-based group Democrats for Education Reform, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the state of what was a cornerstone of his eight-year tenure as mayor. And multiple attempts to reach City Council members who supported the program were not returned.
SLOW GOING
Larry Warner, chief impact and equity officer at United Way of Rhode Island, acknowledges that the nonprofit had yet to receive its $1.75 million allocation from the city.
The organization is still in conversations with the Smiley administration, firming up a timeline and scope of work in the coming weeks, Warner says. Once the money is transferred, United Way plans to raise millions more in donor-directed funds over three years to fund nonprofits engaged in work addressing racial disparities.
Warner could not commit to a definitive timeline on when the funds would be sent, referring questions to City Hall. But he says he understands the administration’s caution, and he is confident that in a few years what some have called a delay will not seem consequential in the bigger picture.
“All the tools in our toolbox are pointed in that direction,” he said. “A few months from now we will likely see significant dollars [being allocated]. And in a year or two we will look back and see the impact.”
Some local organizations that might benefit from a swifter allocation of funds say they are accustomed to the city bureaucracy.
Margaret Devos, executive director of the Southside Community Land Trust, was recently awarded $80,000 from the city for a food program supplying fresh food to African American neighborhoods. The program wasn’t included in the reparations budget but was developed by the Food Disparities Subgroup of the African American Ambassadors Group, connecting users of local food pantries to “fresh, local, culturally appropriate foods” grown by African Americans and other growers of color.
Navigating a change of mayor can be difficult for nonprofits in the middle of applying for financial assistance, particularly if the criteria are amended. The land trust is still waiting for word on an application submitted last November for the One Providence for Youth Employment program.
“We have gotten no positive or negative response on that grant. I have asked multiple people multiple times,” Devos said. “It is certainly disappointing. It would help us expand three healthy food businesses in upper South Providence where we desperately need healthy food. This makes it difficult to prioritize. I wish I had an answer.”
One part of the Municipal Reparation Commission plans has been allocated – the artist program involving the nonprofit arts organization AS220 and the Interlace Grant Fund, which supports Providence-area visual artists.
The $100,000 allocation will fund a “teaching artist” program that will award grants ranging between $1,000 and $8,000 meant for artists who are Black, Indigenous and people of color who lost income during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The goal is to help that demographic,” said Diana Ross, an AS220 administrative assistant who said she joined the nonprofit to help facilitate the program. “We want to make sure they are being cared for and being reimbursed.”
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Providence Mayor Brett P. Smiley / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
IT’S DEBATABLE
Of course, not everyone agrees with that kind of race-based assistance.
Niyoka Powell, vice chairperson of the Rhode Island Republican party, grew up in Jamaica, in one of the country’s poorest parishes. But Powell opposes reparations as it is widely understood.
“I see it as blaming others for your problems,” said Powell, who is running for the District 1 state Senate seat in November. “We jump so hastily to the dollar signs. It’s too self-serving. It doesn’t have to be monetized.”
Powell doesn’t believe descendants of slave owners should pay for the crimes of their ancestors, particularly when funded by taxpayers. She says her first experience of discrimination came as a student at Rhode Island College, where she found herself ostracized by her Black and Latino classmates for her conservative beliefs.
Advocates of the COVID-19 Equity Program have characterized it as just a down payment on a future and sustained effort marshaling state and federal resources, something Powell doesn’t support.
“The taxpayer will take the brunt of the weight. And what we do now will affect generations to come,” she said. “We talk of ancestors, but what about our children?”
However, state Sen. Tiara Mack, D-Providence, says there is much that can be accomplished through public policy. With reparations efforts on Smith Hill failing to gain traction, Mack says the city should be an incubator for programs to address racial disparities.
“I have not heard anyone in [the Smiley] administration talk about reparations,” she said. “But it is a conversation that should be had across every administration.”
Harrison Tuttle, executive director of the Black Lives Matter Rhode Island political action committee, says the actions he’s seen lately at City Hall have not been promising.
“It is disappointing to see [the reparations] program not moving forward after such an incredible effort,” he said. “The only thing I’ve seen is the [enforcement ramp-up] of ATVs. We are still trying to figure out what their aspirations are. It’s possible Smiley has different ideas.”
As for the wider movement, “the momentum isn’t dead,” Tuttle said. “But it has certainly stalled.
“Reparations is all about being able to fill gaps through policy solutions,” he said. “We’ve got a way to go with the inequities we have that can be directly tied back to slavery.”
A NEW REVIEW
Clearly, the Smiley administration hasn’t expressed the same enthusiasm for the reparations initiative as Elorza’s did.
In an interview with PBN immediately after the mayoral election in the fall, Smiley would not commit to making the reparations commission a permanent advisory board, and he didn’t foresee the city committing more money to the initiative.
Then in March, the $150,000 contract intended as seed funding to create a Black Policy and Equity Institute was pulled when administration officials said they “had determined that both the amount of funding and proposed scope of work is insufficient.” The Rhode Island Black Heritage Society had been the sole bidder.
At the time, an administration spokesperson said officials wanted to reissue a request for proposals but they haven’t done so yet. Officials from the society did not return numerous messages.
Smiley told PBN recently that the review of the entire equities program is meant “to ensure that funds met the intent of the commission outlined in [its] report and federal guidelines relative to use and competitive bidding.”
The administration also noted that there is no risk of losing the money if it isn’t allocated and spent quickly. The deadline to allocate ARPA funds is the end of 2024, and the money needs to be spent by the end of 2026.
Nevertheless, what seems like inaction is disheartening for Vincent.
“[The $10 million plan] was meant to be the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Administrations come and go, but the people are still here. Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.”
Reparations my foot. Just another waste of the hard working taxpayers’ money. Politicians using taxpayer money to buy votes as usual.
In our meeting with the Mayor in March he was both dismissive and condescending, which is par for the course with him.