Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman on Friday highlighted a significant decrease in unsheltered homelessness within her district, Council District 4, even as citywide figures revealed a troubling resurgence of the crisis. New data shows unsheltered homelessness in Raman's district fell by 49%, with a 41% decline in makeshift shelters, which she credited to her office's "aggressive interventionist approach."

Raman, who chairs the City Council's Housing and Homelessness Committee, presented these local gains as a model for the city, emphasizing intensive outreach, dedicated staff, encampment tracking, and close monitoring of shelter bed availability. "My office takes the most aggressive interventionist approach to homelessness you will find in Los Angeles," Raman stated, arguing that rigorous oversight, rather than increased spending, yielded these results.

This local success stands in stark contrast to the broader city trends. The latest homeless count indicates a 3.4% rise in overall homelessness across Los Angeles, reaching 45,194 people. The number of individuals living unsheltered climbed by 7.9% to 29,115, reversing two years of previous declines despite an annual spending of nearly $3 billion on homelessness initiatives.

Facing questions about the citywide increase while leading the committee responsible for homelessness policy, Raman distinguished between policy-making and operational execution. "The mayor is the CEO of our city," she said, asserting that the City Council sets policy, but Mayor Karen Bass is ultimately responsible for its implementation. Raman maintained that her direct operational control is confined to Council District 4.

Raman repeatedly returned to her district's results, advocating for a citywide adoption of rigorous oversight, with outcomes measured "program by program, bed by bed." She called for the swift elimination of failing strategies and the expansion of successful ones that move people into permanent housing.

One factor contributing to the citywide rise, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), was a reduction in funding for Time Limited Subsidies, a program offering temporary rental assistance and case management. The agency reported a sharp drop in new enrollments after funding cuts, leading to a decrease in permanent housing placements and exits from shelters, creating bottlenecks that resulted in more people remaining in shelters or returning to the streets.

Raman defended the Time Limited Subsidy program, a cornerstone of her mayoral campaign, calling it one of the region's strongest performing homelessness strategies and attributing the current homelessness increase to insufficient funding, not a flaw in the model.

However, Raman's support for the initiative has drawn criticism. The California Post previously reported that the city's redesigned Time Limited Subsidy program, with a $62.6 million budget, had housed only three households nearly a year after its approval, falling short of its goal to assist approximately 2,000 households.

Mayor Karen Bass' campaign seized on the disparity between Raman's district and citywide numbers. Campaign officials argued that Raman was taking credit for improvements facilitated by Bass' signature Inside Safe program, which they stated has moved 236 people indoors in Raman's district since 2023. The campaign also noted Raman's absence from Inside Safe operations in her district last year, despite now citing her district's declining numbers as evidence of her own approach's success.

"Nithya Raman is taking credit for the results of Inside Safe while campaigning against it," said Bass campaign spokesperson Alex Stack. "Raman’s signature campaign platform on homelessness has been a complete failure, only filling three households after nearly a year and over $60 million. While Raman takes credit for the City’s work in her district, she’s also the chair of the Homelessness & Housing Committee for all of Los Angeles."

The Bass campaign further accused Raman of political inconsistency, pointing to her earlier praise for Inside Safe before criticizing it as fiscally unsustainable during her mayoral campaign.