THE BOTTOM LINE - Nithya Raman lost the homelessness gavel, and the most damaging verdict didn’t come from Republicans. It came from a fellow Democrat.
Councilmember Imelda Padilla accused Raman of leaving more than 100 motions unscheduled, canceling meetings and avoiding controversial votes. Then came the political gut punch:
“The homeless crisis does not need a chair that is all talk and no action.”
In a city that has poured enormous sums into homelessness while still struggling to deliver visible results, that indictment reaches far beyond Raman. It goes straight to the heart of what is wrong with Los Angeles City Hall.
For years, taxpayers have been asked for more money, more patience, and more faith. They have watched City Hall create programs, committees, agencies, and initiatives while homelessness remains one of Los Angeles’ defining crises.
At some point, promises have to become results.
The Record Matters
The City Council voted 13-1 to dissolve the Housing and Homelessness Committee as part of a broader restructuring, ending Raman’s chairmanship.
Raman says her removal was political retaliation connected to her challenge to Mayor Karen Bass.
“The Mayor may be trying to punish me for challenging her,” Raman argued.
Politics may well be part of the story. This is City Hall. But retaliation does not answer the questions being raised about Raman’s performance.
Padilla, who served on the committee, described those months as among her most unproductive on the council. Her criticism was brutal: Raman, she said, ran the committee “like a lecture hall at a university, not a place of government decision making.”
That is not criticism from a Republican adversary or conservative activist. It came from a Democratic colleague who served on Raman’s committee.
The allegation that more than 100 motions went unscheduled cannot simply be waved away. A committee chair has enormous power over what gets heard, delayed, and advanced.
When Los Angeles is confronting a homelessness emergency, government paralysis is not a procedural inconvenience. It has consequences.
More Than $60 Million. Three Households.
Then there is the money.
The Bass campaign has accused Raman of canceling committee meetings, missing votes and failing to deliver enough housing or move enough people off the streets.
Its most explosive allegation concerns one of Raman’s signature housing initiatives: more than $60 million spent or committed while completed housing had reportedly been delivered to only three households after nearly a year.
Because that charge comes from a political opponent, it should be independently scrutinized. But if the underlying figures are accurate, taxpayers deserve far more than another explanation about process.
More than $60 million. Three households.
What was purchased? Where did the money go? What caused the delays? How much housing has actually been completed? What is the cost per completed unit? And when should taxpayers expect meaningful results?
Those are not right-wing questions. They are not left-wing questions.
They are the questions any government spending tens of millions of public dollars should be required to answer.
Spending Is Not Success
This is where Raman’s political reckoning becomes something much larger.
Los Angeles has developed a dangerous habit of treating money spent as evidence of progress made.
It isn’t. Spending is not an outcome.
A billion-dollar appropriation is not a person housed. A committee hearing is not an encampment resolved. A press conference is not a treatment bed. A new initiative is not a safer sidewalk.
And another promise is not progress.
Los Angeles should stop measuring its commitment to homelessness by the size of its budgets and start measuring success by outcomes.
How many people entered permanent housing? How many remained housed? How long did placement take? What did each successful placement cost? How many treatment beds became available? How many projects arrived late or over budget?
Most importantly: Which programs worked, and which failed?
Taxpayers should not need a public-records request, an auditor or a team of researchers to answer those questions. The answers should be readily available.
When a program repeatedly fails to meet its objectives, City Hall should be willing to change it, replace it or shut it down.
Anything less turns accountability into theater.
Raman Is Not the Whole Problem
Raman should not become City Hall’s convenient scapegoat. She did not create Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis and removing her from a committee chairmanship will not solve it.
The homelessness system stretches across City Hall, Los Angeles County, LAHSA, contractors, nonprofit providers, and multiple layers of public funding.
Responsibility has become so fragmented that when something goes wrong, everyone has someone else to blame. That has become one of the system’s greatest protections against accountability.
Raman should answer for her record. So should Mayor Bass. So should the City Council. So should LAHSA. So should every agency, contractor and organization entrusted with substantial taxpayer dollars.
Politicians cannot claim ownership of every success and then suddenly discover “the system” whenever something fails.
Accountability has to work both ways.
Results Versus Excuses
That is what makes Raman’s ouster politically significant.
There are no Republicans on the Los Angeles City Council. The criticism now exploding into public view is coming largely from politicians who share substantial common ground on homelessness policy.
Democrats are accusing fellow Democrats of failing to deliver.
That makes the fight much harder to dismiss as ordinary partisan warfare.
The dividing line at City Hall is increasingly not left versus right.
It is results versus excuses.
Raman says politics explains her removal. Padilla points to leadership failures. The Bass campaign points to Raman’s record.
Every one of those claims deserves scrutiny. But there should be only one standard for judging the people entrusted with confronting one of Los Angeles’ greatest humanitarian and governmental failures:
Did it work?
Not how compassionate the press conference sounded. Not how ambitious the program was. Not how much money was appropriated. Not which political faction supported it.
Did it work?
Nithya Raman losing the homelessness gavel will mean nothing if City Hall merely changes committee names, rearranges chairs, and returns to business as usual.
Los Angeles has tried enormous spending, new programs, reorganizations, committees, consultants, strategies and promises.
What City Hall has too often resisted is much simpler:
Consequences for failure.
If Raman’s ouster represents the beginning of a culture where performance matters, taxpayers should welcome it. If it is merely another round of City Hall political warfare, nothing fundamental will change.
The checks will keep being written. The programs will keep being announced. The politicians will keep blaming one another.
And taxpayers will keep asking the same question:
Where are the results?
Los Angeles does not need another homelessness slogan. It does not need another excuse.
It needs results.
(Mihran Kalaydjian is a seasoned public affairs and government relations professional with more than twenty years of experience in legislative affairs, public policy, community relations, and strategic communications. A respected civic leader and education advocate, he has spearheaded numerous academic and community initiatives, shaping dialogue and driving reform in local and regional political forums. His career reflects a steadfast commitment to transparency, accountability, and public service across Los Angeles and beyond.)
