Nithya Raman was relatively new to Los Angeles city politics when she was elected to the City Council as a progressive in November 2020, unseating a sitting council member for the first time in 17 years. But it came with an ambitious plan to help the homeless and those at risk of losing their homes, offering more housing and services, protecting tenants from rising rents and evictions, and transferring tasks such as traffic enforcement and police non-violent mental health crises. to unarmed rescuers.
Raman, who has a master's degree in urban planning, accomplished much of that and more in his first term representing District 4, which stretches from Reseda east through the San Fernando Valley to the Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake and Los Feliz. We strongly encourage voters to give him a second term so he can continue this important work.
As a council member, he helped lead the passage of a historic expansion of tenant protections last year that, among other things, prevents landlords from evicting tenants from any rental property except for specific reasons. She has been a consistent and outspoken advocate for government transparency and ethics reform, including lobbying her colleagues to adopt independent redistricting and expand the City Council.
He also led the effort to close a stretch of Griffith Park Drive to vehicles to reduce speeding and traffic and make the park safer for people to walk, bike and ride horses.
She has been resourceful in obtaining city and state funding, as well as using her own council's discretionary funds to help house hundreds of homeless people in her district. For example, her staff canvassed the district until she found a hotel owner willing to participate in Project Roomkey, the federally subsidized pandemic-era project that placed vulnerable homeless people in hotel rooms. empty hotel. After Roomkey ended (and residents obtained permanent housing), Raman advocated for turning the hotel into a long-term interim housing site that now has around 140 homeless residents.
Raman estimates that his efforts alone, separate from city programs, have moved about 500 people into temporary housing and have mostly eliminated encampments under freeway overpasses, along the Los Angeles River and in Highland and Franklin avenues, among other places. And he's done it without using Municipal Code 41.18, the anti-camping ordinance that allows police to shoo homeless people from sidewalk to sidewalk.
He has filled gaps in Los Angeles County's mental health service delivery by pushing for an expansion of city-funded street medicine teams and securing city funding to deploy a multidisciplinary team in his district that includes a mental health professional. mental health to treat homeless people. Raman also got the city to expand its unarmed crisis response teams to Sherman Oaks and Los Feliz to handle calls related to homeless people or others in a physical or mental health crisis.
Of course, she hasn't eradicated homelessness in her district. No councilor has done so. And that won't happen until the city finds a way to produce more temporary and permanent housing more quickly and across the city.
But it is taking impressive steps in that direction. Raman supported efforts to streamline the permitting process for 100% affordable housing projects long before Bass unveiled a fast-track plan, Executive Directive 1, in late 2022. Raman currently chairs the Housing and Housing Committee. Council Homeless People.
He is not afraid to make tough decisions that are in the best interest of the city and his district, even if some of his constituents disagree. His support of a 200-unit construction project on Ethel Avenue in Sherman Oaks is a case in point. The project was deemed eligible for expressway before the mayor changed ED 1 rules to prohibit such development in single-family neighborhoods. When the city attempted to stop this and other housing developments that had already been deemed eligible, Raman intervened, drawing the ire of some area residents. Raman says he agrees with ED1's new rules. But he was right to defend a housing project that was legal at the time the developers applied for it. And state housing officials agreed.
“I'm not trying to destroy single-family zones,” Raman said. “But once we create land use laws, we must follow them.” He is right; Complying with planning rules is essential to building more affordable homes.
He has two opponents in this race. Ethan Weaver is a deputy city attorney who also wants to get homeless people off the streets and build more affordable housing. He has promised voters that he will listen to them and get involved in their land use issues. Raman is already doing it. The other candidate is Levon “Lev” Baronian, a member of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council and a software engineer.
Neither candidate has Raman's vision for the issues facing the district and city, nor the experience to address them. No one elected to this office will be able to please all voters at all times. Raman has to make decisions that are in the best interest of the entire city, not just the loudest voices in his district. He has been smart and brave, and voters should give him another term.
