Los Angeles Councilwoman Nithya Raman has accused Mayor Karen Bass of orchestrating her removal as chair of the City Council's Housing and Homelessness Committee, alleging the move is political retaliation for Raman's upcoming challenge to Bass in the November mayoral election.
Raman, who represents Council District 4, made the allegations in a video posted to X on Monday, following a report by The California Post detailing the leadership change. She stated that Bass's "top City Council ally" was responsible for the decision and that while the mayor may be attempting to punish her, "Angelenos are the ones who pay the price for these political games."
She also criticized Bass's administration of the city's homelessness crisis, pointing to an increase in citywide homelessness figures and questioning the oversight of Bass's signature "Inside Safe" program. Raman noted that the mayor has reportedly blocked the city controller from auditing the program, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars.
"The mayor has blocked our independently elected city controller from doing an audit of her signature homelessness program, Inside Safe, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, and still we’ve seen homelessness go up citywide," Raman said.
In contrast, Raman highlighted a reported decrease in street homelessness in her district, Council District 4, by nearly 50%. She attributed this success to direct outreach, bed matching, and getting individuals indoors.
"But in my district, it went down by almost 50%, and we did that the hard way," she said. "We did outreach, we matched people to beds, we got people indoors."
However, Raman's own tenure as chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee has also faced scrutiny. Records indicate she canceled four of the committee's first eight scheduled meetings by late May, leading to a backlog of approximately 133 pending items. Additionally, the city's 2026 homeless count revealed a 3.4% increase in the overall homeless population, reaching 45,194, with unsheltered homelessness rising 7.9% to 29,115.
Raman also oversaw the rollout of the city's redesigned Time-Limited Subsidy program, which had a $62.6 million budget and was projected to assist about 2,000 households. As of June 25, only three households had been permanently housed through this program.
Raman further contended that she had been actively working to combat dysfunction within the city's homelessness response system, citing her efforts to establish a Bureau of Homelessness Oversight. She stated that 16 months after proposing it, the mayor's office had yet to appoint a leader for the bureau.
She also accused City Hall of employing a strategy that merely relocates homeless encampments rather than solving the underlying issues. "I fought for years to push back against a politically motivated system of homelessness response that incentivizes elected officials to shove encampments from one district into another instead of actually solving the problem," Raman stated. "And I faced a wall of resistance."
In response, Bass's campaign spokesman Alex Stack told The California Post that Raman "canceled committee meetings for weeks, didn’t show up to votes, and failed to deliver on building more housing or getting people off the streets." Stack also criticized Raman's "signature program" as a failure, stating it spent over $60 million with minimal housing placements, while Bass's administration has cleared over 120 encampments and secured commitments for 100,000 new homes.