Nithya Raman

Nithya Raman is a Los Angeles City Councilmember representing District 4, first elected in 2020.¹ She is an urban planner who co-founded the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition and previously served as co-chair of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Homelessness Committee.¹

She has proposed increasing housing production, reducing homelessness with more cost-effective services, and repairing basic city infrastructure like streetlights and potholes.² She previously voted more than 60 times against measures to ban homeless encampments near schools, parks, and other public areas. In 2026, she said she would not block new no-camping zones.³ She voted in early 2026 to oppose adding 170 police officers, but later said the city must keep the police department from getting smaller.³ She has pledged to ensure the Los Angeles Police Department does not share data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.⁴ Raman has said she would remove the current chief of the Los Angeles Police Department if elected mayor.⁵ She has proposed creating a Los Angeles Film Office under the mayor to speed up permitting for local film and TV production.⁶

On the City Council, she helped pass universal just-cause eviction protections and increased relocation support for renters.⁷ She was chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee from 2023 until the council president removed her in 2026 to split the committee. In that role, she established performance metrics to track city homelessness spending and guided the creation of a Bureau of Homelessness Oversight.⁸ She also advanced a rental voucher program estimated to cost less than half the price per person of the mayor’s Inside Safe program, though its launch was slow.⁸ She says her approach led to a 70% reduction in tents, RVs, and encampments in her district over three years.⁹