Raman Makes Her Case With Data Showing 49% Drop In Street Homelessness In Her District

India-West News Desk

LOS ANGELES, CA – Los Angeles City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is highlighting a sharp decline in street homelessness in her district, using newly released homelessness data to argue that her approach should serve as a model for the city as she challenges incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.

According to the ‘Los Angeles Times,’ street homelessness, defined as people living outdoors or in vehicles, fell by 49 percent in Raman’s Council District 4 compared with the previous year, while citywide street homelessness increased by nearly 8 percent. Overall homelessness in Los Angeles, which includes people living in shelters and interim housing, rose 3.4 percent, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s January point-in-time count released July 24.

In a statement released by her campaign, Raman said the results demonstrate that “this crisis is solvable.”

“The approach I’ve brought to my district works and it will work citywide if I am elected mayor,” Raman said. “In District 4, the number of people living unsheltered fell by 49 percent. Since 2022, the number of tents is down 73 percent.”

Raman contrasted those results with the city’s overall trend and criticized Bass’ signature ‘Inside Safe’ program, arguing that it has failed to produce lasting results despite costing more than $300 million.

Her campaign said 41 percent of people who entered the program had returned to homelessness and criticized Bass for refusing to allow City Controller Kenneth Mejia to conduct an audit of the initiative.

“‘Inside Safe’ shuffles people from the street to motels and too often back outside,” Raman said. “It moves encampments from block to block without actually getting people indoors. It spends hundreds of millions of dollars without adequate accountability.”

Raman said the strategy in District 4 focuses on coordinating outreach workers, service providers and housing resources while tracking individual cases until people are permanently housed. If elected mayor, she said she would implement a citywide system with a single accountable team and publicly available, real-time data showing shelter capacity and spending.

She also reiterated her campaign pledge to reduce tents and encampments across Los Angeles by half before the 2028 Olympic Games and to effectively end them by the close of her first term.

The ‘Los Angeles Times’ reported that Bass’ campaign disputed Raman’s claims, saying the improvements in District 4 resulted in part from citywide investments, including ‘Inside Safe,’ and accusing Raman of taking credit for work funded by the mayor’s administration. Bass’s campaign also argued that Raman’s district has received a disproportionate share of homelessness resources and questioned whether its approach could be replicated across the city.