Mayor Karen Bass conspired with a political ally to push rival Nithya Raman out as chair of LA’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, the councilwoman alleged.
Raman, who’s difficult Bass in November, blasted the shake-up in a video posted to X Monday after the California Put up first reported that she was being eliminated as chair of the committee.
“Mayor Bass’ high Metropolis Council ally eliminated me as Chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee,” Raman stated. “The Mayor could also be making an attempt to punish me for difficult her, however Angelenos are those who pay the value for these political video games.”
She then went straight after Bass’ dealing with of homelessness, pointing to rising numbers citywide and questioning oversight of the mayor’s signature Inside Protected program.
“The mayor has blocked our independently elected metropolis controller from doing an audit of her signature homelessness program, Inside Protected, which has spent a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} of public cash, and nonetheless we’ve seen homelessness go up citywide,” Raman stated.
Raman contrasted these outcomes together with her personal Council District 4, the place she stated avenue homelessness fell practically 50%.
“However in my district, it went down by nearly 50%, and we did that the onerous means,” she stated. “We did outreach, we matched individuals to beds, we obtained individuals indoors.”
Raman’s personal file overseeing homelessness at Metropolis Corridor has drawn scrutiny.
As chair, Raman canceled 4 of the committee’s first eight scheduled conferences this 12 months by late Could, whereas roughly 133 pending objects piled up earlier than the committee.
In the meantime, the town’s 2026 homeless rely discovered 45,194 homeless individuals in Los Angeles, up 3.4% from the earlier 12 months. Unsheltered homelessness jumped 7.9% to 29,115 individuals.
Raman additionally oversaw the rollout of the town’s redesigned Time-Restricted Subsidy program, which had a $62.6 million finances and was anticipated to assist roughly 2,000 households.
Nevertheless, simply three households had been completely housed by means of this system, as of June 25.
Raman used Monday’s video to argue that she had been preventing the dysfunction relatively than contributing to it.
“I fought to create a Bureau of Homelessness Oversight on the metropolis to ensure that we’re monitoring each single greenback,” Raman stated. “Sixteen months later, the mayor’s workplace nonetheless hasn’t employed somebody to guide it.”
She additionally accused Metropolis Corridor of perpetuating a system that shifts homeless encampments round Los Angeles relatively than resolving them.
“I fought for years to push again towards a politically motivated system of homelessness response that incentivizes elected officers to shove encampments from one district into one other as an alternative of really fixing the issue,” Raman stated. “And I confronted a wall of resistance.”
Bass’ marketing campaign has fired again at Raman’s file.
“Nithya Raman canceled committee conferences for weeks, didn’t present as much as votes, and did not ship on constructing extra housing or getting individuals off the streets,” Bass marketing campaign spokesman Alex Stack beforehand instructed The California Put up.
“Her signature program has been a failure, spending over $60 million for practically a 12 months however solely filling 3 flats,” Stack added. “Karen Bass approached these crises with urgency, cleansing up over 120 encampments and unlocking 100,000 new properties.”
