Raman will lose homelessness committee chair as mayoral race heats up, sources say
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is expected to lose her leadership role on the L.A. City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, which she has chaired since 2023, according to people familiar with the situation.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson is planning to announce this week that the committee will be split into a housing committee and a homelessness committee — neither of which will be led by Raman, the people said.
Harris-Dawson is a close ally of Mayor Karen Bass, whom Raman is challenging for re-election. He declined to comment.
“It’s hard to imagine that it’s not related to politics. The timing of it would be too much of a coincidence,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former Los Angeles City Councilmember and Los Angeles County supervisor who now serves as chair of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.
Raman’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the impending shakeup, which was reported earlier by the California Post.
The move comes at a pivotal moment in the mayor’s race on homelessness.
The city’s unsheltered homeless population increased this year after two straight years of decreases, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported last month.
While the citywide number has increased, the number of homeless people living on the street in Raman’s district decreased by 49%, a fact she has touted as she challenges Bass.
Raman and Bass have presented starkly different takes regarding the situation citywide and in Raman’s district.
The mayor has posited that her signature program, Inside Safe, which addresses homeless encampments by moving homeless individuals into temporary housing, was largely responsible for the drop in Raman’s district and that federal and state budget cuts partially led to the increase citywide.
She also attacked Raman’s performance as the chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee.
“While Raman takes credit for the City’s work in her district, ignoring the fact that she’s the Chair of the Homelessness & Housing Committee for ALL of Los Angeles, Mayor Bass is working to move our city forward and address years of neglect,” said Bass’ campaign spokesperson Alex Stack in a statement last month about the homeless numbers.
Raman claimed that there have only been three Inside Safe operations in her district and that her committee has been stifled by inaction from the mayor.
“Council can pass legislation… move motions forward, but it is the mayor that has charge of the implementation and outcomes, she said at a press conference last month.