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Providence to Use Federal COVID Relief Funds for Racial Reparations

Providence to Use Federal COVID Relief Funds for Racial Reparations

Mayor Jorge Elorza ; “We know that $10 million is not enough. We can’t right all the wrongs of the past, but we can take an important first step.”

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza has big plans for the city’s COVID funds, including using millions for reparations.

Is this how these funds were meant to be used? Did taxpayers agree to this?

WPRI News reports:

Providence finalizes plan to invest $124M in federal COVID money

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza signed a spending plan for $124 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding Friday, paving the way for the city to invest tens of millions of dollars into housing and infrastructure projects.

“It goes to support a bunch of different, really important initiatives,” Elorza told 12 News during a live interview just hours after signing the ordinance. “But the most important thing is the housing crisis, really the housing affordability crisis in the city.”

The budget allocates nearly $31 million to housing, including $17 million for affordable housing development…

The spending plan also earmarks $10 million for reparations through something called the “COVID-19 Equities Program.” A committee is currently reviewing how exactly to spend that money.

“Reparations can take a lot of different shapes,” Elorza said. “We know that $10 million is not enough. We can’t right all the wrongs of the past, but we can take an important first step.”

Elorza said it remains to be seen whether direct cash payments will be part of the plan, but said he thinks the most important way to invest the money is to help build up wealth for Black families and address historic discrimination in neighborhoods where Black homeowners might have been forced to sell or were prevented from buying homes in the past.

This is something Elorza has been working on for months, but now he has the cash to do it.

The Associated Press reported in February:

Providence mayor forms reparations commission

Providence’s mayor announced a city commission on reparations Monday as he and community leaders laid out their plans for the next phase in the Rhode Island capital city’s efforts to atone for its role in Black slavery, systemic racism and the mistreatment of Native Americans.

The executive order signed by Democratic Mayor Jorge Elorza at the city’s Bethel AME Church creates the Providence Municipal Reparations Commission.

The 13-member panel is charged with examining reparation work being done in other cities, conducting community outreach and creating recommendations for ways the city can begin repairing harms. NAACP Providence President Jim Vincent is among those already tapped to serve on the board, Elorza said.

“While we know the city alone cannot repair the full scope of harm, today’s action brings us another step closer to addressing the disparities our African heritage and Indigenous residents continue to face,” the mayor said in a written statement.

Here he is signing the excutive order in 2020:

What does any of this have to do with COVID?

Featured image via YouTube.

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Comments

2smartforlibs | May 22, 2022 at 10:18 am

WE need that swamp drain NOW.

    Peabody in reply to 2smartforlibs. | May 22, 2022 at 2:07 pm

    “When you are up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your original goal was to drain the swamp.”

    Idonttweet in reply to 2smartforlibs. | May 23, 2022 at 8:17 am

    No more “COVID Relief” bills until waste, fraud, and abuse like this stamped out and the misused funds clawed back and recovered.

    Reminds me of the story of Davy Crockett as a congressman being lectured on ethics by an old farmer.

    So it seems there are Billions of dollars sloshing around for every feel good project these communists want to spend it on?? I didn’t vote for this !!!!!

Someone needs to sue this Communist SOB and stop this insanity.

The Covid Relief Bill was nothing more than a blue state bailout/slush fund when it was passed, and it’s still a blue state bailout/slush fund.

    henrybowman in reply to Guardian79. | May 22, 2022 at 2:52 pm

    “Federal grants” is yet one more thing for which there is not one word of authorization in the constitution.

Was the American Rescue Plan Act designed to “rescue” the country from constitutionality, fair play and good sense?

Why not ask the Providence voters? Oh wait, November is coming. Is Elorza up for election? Somehow, I think not.

The Gentle Grizzly | May 22, 2022 at 10:53 am

“ Jorge Elorza”. At least he has a good name for a banana republic dictator.

Throughout the course of this “pandemic,” local governments have been scurrying to find ways to spend “COVID” monies, as well as qualify for more by forcing compliance with idiotic mandates, such as forcing small children to wear masks.

Now the local news also says that COVID funding will fall short for next year, so the Biden administration needs more money.

I sense a disconnect, somewhere.

Looks like another BLM-Style distribution scheme where a few black folks will do very, very well. Those who seek accountability are white supremacists, and those who support it are heroic anti-racists.

Maybe a whole bunch of blacks will suddenly become RI residents.

    Peabody in reply to Whitewall. | May 22, 2022 at 2:36 pm

    Maybe a bunch of whites will suddenly become Florida residents.

      Whitewall in reply to Peabody. | May 22, 2022 at 3:51 pm

      safe bet

      billi in reply to Peabody. | May 23, 2022 at 11:52 am

      Appreciate the comment. However we have so many people from New York, New Jersey and Calf etal down here that I’m afraid, when they have a few months living free down here, that their old selves will take over and they’ll decide it’s OK to slip in a socialist or two too balance things out. And there is the slippery slope to ????

There were very few limitations and conditions placed on the ‘absolutely critical federal funding that must get out the door yesterday to combat the Covid crisis so that the States, Cities and Counties have the necessary resources’.

Perhaps Congress should consider an amendment requiring the recipient govts to set aside 1/3 of the remaining unspent funds for future pandemics? Nah, that would disrupt the grift. The feds can always print more dollars to shovel out ….until they can’t or until people decide they no longer impressed by fiat currency’s claims of full faith and credit because they have lost their faith in govt and don’t choose to extend anymore credit to an overdrawn federal treasury.

    Peabody in reply to CommoChief. | May 22, 2022 at 1:55 pm

    I read a book years ago where the author maintained that if you took all the money in the United States and divided it up so that everybody had the same amount, it would all be back in the same hands within a short period of time.

    And so that if you wanted everybody to have the same amount of money you would have to keep doing that over and over forever and ever.

      henrybowman in reply to Peabody. | May 22, 2022 at 2:56 pm

      Sounds like The Millionaire Next Door. Except that its premise would be that the money’s distribution curve would reassert itself, but not necessarily in the exact same sets of hands. One of its major premises was that although there will always be a 1%, the (dynastic) membership of that 1% changes almost completely in 2-3 generations. Popularly known as the Paris Hilton effect.

Desperate to “win” the 2022 elections by pulling out all the $tops$. “Jorge Elorza”… welcome to Venezuela II.

And Trump was not allowed money to finish the wall, nor to use other funds to complete

What a horrible country we have become

“Is this how these funds were meant to be used? Did taxpayers agree to this?”

No, of course not. But that’s precisely how this ’emergency’ pork slop is desgned to work.

Commies always lie, steal, cheat to fund their agendas. They’ll even threaten to burn down the supreme court to get their way.

I want a tax refund but I won’t get my way.

“We can’t right all the wrongs of the past, but we can take an important first step.”

We can’t even agree on what the wrongs are, much less do anything about them.

I’m not eligible for a dime of this money because of my skin color.

What’s that called?

The more they hand out, the more it’s worthless.
Million and tens of millions handed to the BLM shakedown did nothing for the Black society.

    Paul in reply to Skip. | May 22, 2022 at 2:09 pm

    Shit, we’ve handed them tens of TRILLIONS since the start of LBJ’s “Great Society” and look at the results.

    Government is the problem, not the solution.

      Peabody in reply to Paul. | May 22, 2022 at 4:13 pm

      Tens of TRILLIONS. Yeah, that’s a good first step. But much more is needed. I’ll have to get a second job.

      The Gentle Grizzly in reply to Paul. | May 22, 2022 at 6:42 pm

      I’ve written this in the past: it is time to kick them out of the nest. No more set-asides, quotas, race-normed scores, or affirmative action.

      Outright racism like from the 1950s has greatly subsided. The black who tries will succeed. The lazy or the ones feeling they are owed, will not.

      The new Clarence Thomas’s, Condie Rice’s, Tom Sowell’s, et al, will be the next CT, CR, or TS.

      The snivelers and the lazy and the “dey owes me!” will be sweeping floors, cleaning grease traps, scrubbing toilets, and doing the menial work they are suited to do. Right along with the lazy Whites and every other group.

      Racism is a tired excuse.

Albigensian | May 22, 2022 at 3:48 pm

“We know that $10 million is not enough …”

I’m not going to ask how you know this (evidence? logic? jus’ becuz?) but, why would you ever agree that any amount would or could ever be “enough”?

If you enslaved all of us (and all our descendants, in perpetuity) who fail to qualify for these reparations to raise funds for those who do even that would not be “enough,” would it?

Providence violent crime is 30.4. (The US average is 22.7)
Providence property crime is 53.1. (The US average is 35.4)

There’s a growing feeling that people are not safe anymore.

“You put that all together, and you get this overwhelming feeling of ‘oh my God, let me stay in the house!’” said Bishop Jeffrey A. Williams of The King’s Cathedral in Providence.

So need to spend any money to make the city safer.

Reparations should be paid to people who were harmed, directly, by being a slave. Not many left that I know of. Beyond that, I don’t get it..

I thought blood guilt was not a part of our fundamental legal system. But, then again, we are living in a clown world.

    n.n in reply to amwick. | May 22, 2022 at 5:41 pm

    It’s worse, Americans stood against slavery and diversity from long before incorporation as a nation, then shed blood to end slavery (e.g. redistributive change), and sacrificed to mitigate the progress of diversity [dogma] (e.g. racism, class-based bigotry).

      henrybowman in reply to n.n. | May 22, 2022 at 11:10 pm

      And when you see students agitating to remove statues of Abraham Lincoln “because racism,” you suddenly realize that these orcs don’t even inhabit the same world that you do.

Has nothing to do with the wuflu and everything to do with buying votes.

Pepsi_Freak | May 23, 2022 at 8:17 am

I didn’t realize they had slavery in Rhode Island — I always thought it was one of those northern states. You don’t suppose they’re making this up, do you?

    Pepsi_Freak in reply to Pepsi_Freak. | May 23, 2022 at 8:21 am

    I guess not — he seems clear enough: “Rhode Island capital city’s efforts to atone for its role in Black slavery”

I used to say we need to start hanging democrats after a short, but fair, trial by a jury of their peers. Now, I no longer care if they get a trial of any sort. Just start hanging the useless, destructive thugs and be done with it…

    Sternverbs in reply to Sternverbs. | May 23, 2022 at 8:25 am

    Start with the Senate and the House, and work our way down to state-level democrats. I volunteer to kick out gallows trap doors on the weekend, if that helps.

The other States need to litigate against RI for misappropriation of Federal funds. This is wrong and everybody knows it.

Has anyone actually tracked how the COVID relief funds were distributed and in whose hands the funds actually landed? Is there any oversight whatsoever? Is there any recource taxpayers can tax to stop the misuse of these funds?

WHAT ABOUT THE IRISH ? WHAT ABOUT THE ITALIANS ? WHAT ABOUT THE JEWS ? WHAT ABOUT THE PUERTO RICANS ? WHAT ABOUT ALL THE ETHENIC GROUPS THAT CAME HERE AND WERE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF?

GET OVER IT ! MOVE ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What about asking a friendly Congressman ask GAO for an audit of these funds? What about a si pre lawsuit to fight this waste, fraud and abuse? What about spending the $10 million to get everyone vaccinated and boosted? What about giving the $10 million as a grant to the local hospital so that it has the PPE and other standby equipment necessary to address the next epidemic? How does the Providence per capita number of ICU beds relate to other cities?

1. Reparations based solely on skin color seem likely to be challenged legally as violations of both federal and state non-discrimination statures which are neutral and prohibit racial discrimination in both directions. A Virginia locality that was to give racially limited scholarships had to back off.

2. If this stands, Providence will likely become a mostly Black city. People moving in to get reparations, people moving out not to pay them.

3. Why should people get money based on their genes? If so, what of Irish, Italians, and Jews (whose ancestors were held as slaves in Egypt). You can’t make it up to those who are dead and gone.

He’s just another example of an immigrant or child of immigrants who hates the nation that gave them succor.

The Democratic Party is growing them like weeds with several already in Congress and numerous mayors and other pols across America.

Is there a Federal Prosecutor that will file charges of “misappropriation of government funds”?