Palm Springs officials approve $5.9 million to pay Black and Latino families displaced from area

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — A Southern California city will pay $5.9 million to compensate Black and Latino families displaced from a neighborhood in the 1960s and decades afterward waged a battle for restitution.

The Palm Springs City Council approved it the agreement voted unanimously on Thursday. The council also approved $10 million for a new homebuyer assistance program, $10 million for a community land trust and the creation of a monument commemorating the neighborhood’s history known as Section 14.

Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein said earlier this week that the city is “taking bold and important action that will deliver lasting benefits for our entire community while providing programs that prioritize support for the former residents of Section 14.”

It has not been determined how much each family or individual will receive in direct compensation, attorney Areva Martin said earlier this week. Martin represents more than 300 former residents and hundreds of descendants. The housing assistance money would go to low-income Palm Springs residents, with priority given to former Section 14 residents and descendants.

Section 14 was a one-square-mile neighborhood on a Native American reservation that many black and Mexican-American families once called home. Families recalled homes in the area being set on fire and demolished before residents were told to leave their homes.

The City Council voted in 2021 to formally apologize for the city’s role in the displacement. Families filed a tort claim with the city in 2022, and the following year announced they were seeking $2.3 billion for damages caused by their displacement.

The tort claim argued that the tragedy was akin to the violence that decimated a vibrant community known as Black Wall Street more than a century ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing as many as 300 people. No deaths have been reported in connection with the movement of families from Section 14.