Talking Points: St. Paul considering $2M reparations fund for Rondo neighborhood

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Coming up next month, the St. Paul Housing Redevelopment Authority will meet to discuss creating a $2 million reparations fund for the Rondo neighborhood.

Rondo was a thriving Black community of homeowners and businesses, many of which were bulldozed in the late 1950s and early 1960s to make way for the construction of Interstate 94.

There are estimates that 700 homes in St. Paul were leveled - nearly all of them owned by Black residents.

If the $2 million proposal moves forward, it would provide as much as $100,000 in forgivable loans for individuals to rebuild.

Reviving Rondo has long been a priority for St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, whose family lost a half dozen buildings. Carter was a guest on WCCO Sunday Morning at 10:30 a.m.  

"We saw 700 ... families displaced from their homes and many of those families have not been able to rebuild the homeownership, rebuild the businesses, rebuild the wealth that their family had then," Carter said. "So we're proposing the inheritance fund, which is to facilitate people rebuilding that wealth."

Rondo was not the only Black neighborhood gutted in the Interstate building boom nationwide. An estimated 495,000 homes and a million people were displaced, nearly all in Black communities in cities like New York, Miami, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Nashville and Atlanta.

Those cities are watching to see how St. Paul's proposal moves forward.

If approved, those residents in St. Paul could start applying for the money sometime next year.

You can watch WCCO Sunday Morning with Esme Murphy and Mike Augustyniak every Sunday at 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.