{"id":1018884,"date":"2026-08-23T10:41:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T10:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1018884\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T10:41:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T10:41:30","slug":"ramans-role-in-tackling-homelessness-comes-under-scrutiny-in-l-a-mayors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1018884\/","title":{"rendered":"Raman’s role in tackling homelessness comes under scrutiny in L.A. mayor’s race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nithya Raman has made Los Angeles\u2019 struggle to combat homelessness a key plank in her mayoral campaign, yet her own record on the matter has itself become an issue with her ouster as head of the City Council committee seeking solutions to the crisis. <\/p>\n

Mayor Karen Bass is at the helm of the city\u2019s battle against homelessness, but since 2023 Raman has been the second-most powerful official as chair of the City Council\u2019s Housing and Homelessness Committee. That changed this month, when council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a key Bass ally, split the committee in two and removed Raman<\/a> as its chair, effective Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

Raman claims that politics were at play, casting her removal as a hit job for her decision to challenge Bass. Harris-Dawson disputes that, saying Raman failed to lead the committee with the urgency needed to combat L.A.\u2019s enduring homelessness crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe committee is behind in excess of more than 100 issues,\u201d said Harris-Dawson in an interview. \u201cThere are very serious decisions to make over what happens with homelessness. We needed someone who could focus on that and get it done and get it done quickly and show ability to build consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the dispute over Raman\u2019s leadership of the committee, there are clear policy disagreements between the mayor and the council member over the best way to combat the crisis.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A Metro bus passes by a man sleeping on the sidewalk on North Spring Street in downtown Friday.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Raman contends that Bass\u2019 signature program Inside Safe, which dismantles encampments and moves people living there into motels, hotels and interim housing, is overly expensive and unsustainable. On average, the cost of housing these individuals runs about $82,000 a year, according to city reports.<\/p>\n

Raman has repeatedly signed off on funding for the program, but has become more critical of it in the last year. <\/p>\n

Despite the city\u2019s efforts, L.A.\u2019s unsheltered homeless population \u2014 those living outdoors or in their vehicles \u2014 went up by 7.9% after two consecutive years of decreases, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported last month.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cThe approach to homelessness that Mayor Bass has led and defended has brought us here,\u201d Raman said after LAHSA\u2019s report was released.<\/p>\n

Raman has called for the use of time-limited subsidies, or rental vouchers, to house homeless Angelenos in private residences \u2014 at a city-estimated cost of $30,000, less than half the price of an average Inside Safe bed. Raman says she would \u201csignificantly expand\u201d<\/a> the city\u2019s investment in the vouchers if she became mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the same amount of money, we could rent three apartments using a short-term rental voucher and provide intensive services \u2014 housing more people in a program that has delivered much better outcomes,\u201d Raman says in her mayoral policy platform on homelessness.<\/a><\/p>\n

Even so, the more than $60-million voucher program Raman has already pushed through her committee has so far struggled to get off the ground under a tight timeline, and Raman\u2019s critics have seized on the delay as evidence of the council member\u2019s ineffectiveness.<\/p>\n

\"Pedestrians <\/p>\n

Pedestrians pass by a homeless encampment along the 101 northbound offramp, at right, near City Hall Friday.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

A city consultant on the program set a goal of having 600 households moved into leases by July 1 of this year, and 2,000 households moved in by next April. But as of that July 1 date, only three households had moved into homes via the vouchers, housing officials said in a report. <\/p>\n

By Aug. 13, however, the number had jumped to 54 households, \u201cwith new move ins happening nearly every day,\u201d the housing department said in a report.<\/p>\n

Bass\u2019 campaign spokesperson, Alex Stack, cited the sluggish start to the program and said subsidies are only a small part of the fight against homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the silver bullet Raman\u2019s selling,\u201d Stack said.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Raman said that the contracting process slowed the start of the program, but that time-limited subsidies are a great way to free up space in city shelters by moving those people into private housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a cost-effective program that has very good outcomes in the past in terms of percentage of people moving on to permanent housing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Nithya <\/p>\n

Nithya Rama listens to a question at the mayoral debate hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.<\/p>\n

(David Butow \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

Raman added that the council will continue to monitor data from the program and make fixes as needed if it doesn\u2019t move fast enough.<\/p>\n

Homeless services providers working with the city on the program said part of the challenge has been getting a completely new program off the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been slower than I think most people anticipated,\u201d said Sasha Morozov, the regional director of supportive services for PATH, a nonprofit contracting with the city for the program.<\/p>\n

But Morozov said the program is speeding up now and she believed the 2,000 slots will be filled on time.<\/p>\n

A key plank in Raman\u2019s platform<\/p>\n

Raman said she ran for council largely to take on the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. She says she is running for mayor for the same reason.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s cited a 49% drop in street homelessness in her district over the past year as a clear sign that she is equipped to bring down homelessness citywide. Bass counters it was her efforts through Inside Safe that brought homelessness down in Raman\u2019s district.<\/p>\n

\"People <\/p>\n

People living on the street in downtown L.A. gather cardboard for shelter during a heat wave last month. <\/p>\n

(Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

While chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, Raman established monitoring of all the city\u2019s spending on homelessness and tracking of 35 key performance metrics to see how effective the city\u2019s investments are. She also stewarded the creation of a Bureau of Homelessness Oversight within the city\u2019s Housing Department that is responsible for coordinating and overseeing the city\u2019s homelessness system.<\/p>\n

Her critics say that Raman\u2019s tenure atop the committee hasn\u2019t adequately met the moment facing the city of Los Angeles \u2014 with the Trump administration and county both moving to cut funding<\/a> from LAHSA, the joint city-county authority responsible for homeless services. Meanwhile, the city is still managing a landmark federal lawsuit settlement, which requires it to invest in thousands of new shelter beds<\/a> in its response to homelessness. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been in this building … longer than Karen Bass,\u201d said Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who served on the committee under Raman. \u201cIt\u2019s convenient now for her to saddle all blame on the mayor when she rubber-stamped Inside Safe and stood in lockstep with the mayor.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Mayor <\/p>\n

Mayor Karen Bass, left, and City Council member Monica Rodriguez at City Hall.<\/p>\n

(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Rodriguez has specifically accused Raman \u2014 as chair of the committee \u2014 of slow-walking Rodriguez\u2019s proposal from 2024 for the city to study a plan to separate itself from LAHSA and form its own department that would directly contract with homeless services providers.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez said it took Raman months to schedule her motion in committee and that, while it was pending, the county removed most of its funding from LAHSA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city has been left flatfooted because she wouldn\u2019t lead our conversation. She wouldn\u2019t schedule our items. She set us up for failure,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Raman tried until the last minute<\/a> to get the county to remain in LAHSA. <\/p>\n

While Rodriguez\u2019s motion was waiting on a report, Raman made her own proposal to create a Bureau of Homelessness Oversight within the Los Angeles Housing Department to keep track of the city\u2019s more than $1-billion annual investment in homelessness response.<\/p>\n

The council moved that bureau forward last year, and a spokesperson for the Housing Department said that seven positions have been hired within the bureau handling contracts and data oversight.<\/p>\n

Harris-Dawson said a seven-person bureau isn\u2019t adequate.<\/p>\n

Raman said the bureau was a starting point that could one day lead to a department, which she said would be expensive and take a long time to stand up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not precluding [the creation of a department],\u201d Raman told The Times. \u201cThis was trying to speed up that staffing faster than the departmental process normally takes in this city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raman said she talked to Bass about creating a department for homelessness in late 2023 or early 2024, but the mayor told her to move ahead with the bureau instead. Bass representatives didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

Paige Sterling, a spokesperson for the mayor, said that Bass and Raman discussed the bureau in 2025, during the budget process. The mayor opposed a standalone department at the time because it \u201cwould add to the bureaucracy,\u201d and the bureau was a compromise, Sterling said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor signed a budget with funding and positions for the bureau, which begins to give the city the capacity it needs to start overseeing homelessness as we evaluate what the future governance of this issue looks like,\u201d Sterling said.<\/p>\n

Raman has touted the bureau as a success that provides clear oversight of how the city spends its money, but has also claimed that the mayor\u2019s office has moved too slowly to staff the bureau. The Housing Department still hasn\u2019t hired an assistant general manager to oversee it. <\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The rotunda at L.A. City Hall.<\/p>\n

(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Canceled meetings and frustrated colleagues<\/p>\n

Raman hasn\u2019t been endorsed for mayor by any of her colleagues on the council, and some of those who served on her homelessness and housing panel say she did a shoddy job as its chair. They complain that she frequently canceled meetings and allowed hundreds of motions to pile up without getting moved through council. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt had started to feel less like a policymaking body and more like a scholastic seminar \u2014 a lot of philosophizing, a lot of talk about feelings, but not enough substantive questions or direction on policy to present to staff,\u201d Councilmember Imelda Padilla said in a statement to The Times. <\/p>\n

In response, Raman said her committee focused on data to make sure the city\u2019s investment in fighting homelessness is paying off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t feel scholarly to me, that feels like oversight and accountability \u2014 exactly what the public is asking for for one of our largest investments as a city,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The full council, meanwhile, has agreed to review its relationship with LAHSA and the county, and to study creating a new department to centralize homelessness oversight. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis conversation that we\u2019re having about this … is long overdue,\u201d said Councilmember John Lee. <\/p>\n

Raman will have a seat on the new homelessness committee, but it will be chaired by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado. Padilla was named chair of the new Housing Committee.<\/p>\n

Raman\u2019s final meeting as committee chair was supposed to be Wednesday. <\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t show up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nithya Raman has made Los Angeles\u2019 struggle to combat homelessness a key plank in her mayoral campaign, yet…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1018885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[6297,11394,1582,276,27165,2451,407777,21059,7265,385287,75707,407776,2961,29567,224,5337,12176,4369,249145,22310],"class_list":["post-1018884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bass","tag-bureau","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-chair","tag-city","tag-city-report","tag-council-member","tag-homelessness","tag-homelessness-committee","tag-household","tag-housing-department","tag-la","tag-lahsa","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-mayor","tag-program","tag-raman","tag-rodriguez"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117144409249917464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1018885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}