In a recent column for the Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez examines the decades-long cycle of unfulfilled promises made by Los Angeles mayors regarding homelessness and questions whether Mayor-elect Nithya Raman can finally break that pattern.
Decades of Grand Proclamations and Falling Short
Lopez recounts listening to successive mayoral administrations pledge to eradicate the crisis since 2005, when he first met a violinist named Nathaniel near Pershing Square and followed him to Skid Row. Antonio Villaraigosa, Eric Garcetti, and Karen Bass all invested vast sums of money and manpower, helping thousands of individuals turn their lives around. Yet, the systemic inflow of unhoused people persisted, leaving more than 40,000 people homeless in the city.
Past mayors routinely offered sweeping timelines that ultimately collapsed against the sheer scale of the crisis. In 2006, politicians touted a 10-year plan to end homelessness in L.A. County. In 2013, Garcetti vowed to end chronic homelessness, following up in 2018 with a projection that the city could cut the problem in half in five years and end life on the street in a decade. In 2023, Bass told a CNN audience that her goal by the end of her term was to end street homelessness so people would no longer die on the streets.
Lopez notes that these amped-up promises have repeatedly let the public down, fostering cynicism among residents who are simply looking for significant progress rather than a miracle. He points out that homelessness stems from a raft of economic and societal problems beyond any single mayor’s control, including a stark economic disparity, soaring housing costs, and untreated mental illness and drug addiction.
The Shift in Strategy Under Mayor-Elect Raman
Karen Bass is out and Nithya Raman is in following a contentious campaign where Raman criticized the Bass administration’s strategies as too costly and ineffective. Raman set an aggressive target on her campaign website, promising to cut tents and encampments in half by the Olympics and bring everyone living in tents and encampments indoors by the end of her first term.
Lopez reports that Raman intends to mothball Mayor Bass’ Inside Safe program. As of the spring, that initiative had moved about 6,000 people into motels and other forms of interim housing at a cost of $300 million, but 41% of those participants had returned to homelessness by the end of May. Raman plans to replace such efforts with short-term rental vouchers she argues will prove far less expensive and more effective.
Her proposed strategy also involves opening doors for City Controller Kenneth Mejia to audit every dollar spent on homelessness, demanding a full accounting of county services, using Medi-Cal funds to expand street medicine teams, and investing in shared housing and case management. Raman asserts that City Hall has long operated a patchwork of disconnected programs that were never required to prove their effectiveness together.
Working with City Hall and the Human Element of Recovery
Putting a plan on paper is one challenge, Lopez writes, but pushing it through the City Hall grinder without diluting good intentions is quite another. Whether Raman can successfully wrangle the support of council members who previously shunned her and unanimously endorsed Bass is not yet clear.
Even so, Raman brings notable urban planning expertise and grassroots experience to the office. As a co-founder of the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition and having led the City Council’s homelessness committee, she developed a direct, street-level understanding of government dysfunction. Louis Abramson, a Hollywood resident and Rand researcher who serves as chair of the SELAH board, notes that Raman’s situational awareness will allow her to argue from a perspective of genuine expertise and make Los Angeles a place that fits everybody who wants to live there.
Lopez emphasizes that physical housing alone does not solve the underlying crisis. Long-term case management, a sense of purpose, and deep human relationships remain critical. Reflecting on his decades-long friendship with Nathaniel—who eventually moved into a nursing home where he maintains a wall of fame featuring Beethoven, Bach, and actress Halle Berry—Lopez emphasizes that human connection is a necessary precondition for lasting recovery.
