Street homelessness is on the rise in Los Angeles. In Nithya Raman’s constituency, it was almost split in half

Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, who is running for Mayor against incumbent Karen Bass, saw a sharp drop in homeless people in her district on Friday while the explosions spread across the city.

Street homelessness – people living outside or in their cars – has dropped by 49% in Raman’s district compared to last year, he said at a press conference on Friday.

Citywide, street homelessness is up nearly 8%, and overall homelessness, which includes those living in shelters and other temporary accommodations, is up 3.4%, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s January point-in-time count released Friday.

The contrast between his district and the city as a whole gave Raman an opportunity to portray himself as more effective in dealing with the problem of homelessness than Bass.

There are an estimated 45,194 homeless people living in the city, about 36% of whom are in shelters, according to LAHSA.

“There are too few people living outside. There are too many people indoors,” Raman, who has served on the council since 2020 and chairs the council’s housing and homeless committee, said at a press conference. “As mayor, that’s the way, and the results, that I want to bring to the whole city.”

The citywide numbers backfired for Bass, who has made homelessness one of his signature issues and previously touted two consecutive years of declining street homelessness.

Raman cited his office’s homeless task force and their “aggressive intervention” approach as reasons his district — which stretches from Los Feliz and Silver Lake to Studio City, Sherman Oaks and other parts of the San Fernando Valley — hasn’t seen the same increase as other parts of the city.

He said his team is very familiar with the homeless people in the region and they know many by name. The team tracks homeless people on a map and makes sure empty shelter beds are filled, he said.

Bass’ campaign said Raman was attacking the mayor’s Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people off the streets and into shelters and motel beds, at the same time that it contributed to his district’s decline.

Raman criticized Inside Safe as too expensive and not transparent enough.

“Nithya Raman is taking credit for the results of Inside Safe while campaigning against it,” Alex Stack, Bass’s campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “While Raman praises the City’s work in his district, ignoring the fact that he is the Chair of the ALL Los Angeles Committee on Homelessness and Housing, Mayor Bass is working to move our city forward and address years of neglect.”

Raman responded to that criticism in his press conference, saying his district has had three Inside Safe operations in the past four years — fewer than other districts.

He bristled when asked Friday about his responsibility for homelessness across the city, as chairman of the city’s housing and homeless committee.

“The Council can pass the law … advance the proposals, but the mayor is in charge of its implementation and results,” he said.

Citywide, Inside Safe has moved more than 6,000 people into hotels, motels and other forms of temporary housing since Bass took office in December 2022. But by May 31, 41% of those people had returned to homelessness, according to LAHSA statistics compiled separately from this year’s homelessness count.

Bass says the increase in homelessness citywide is partly due to state and federal government cuts. He also said the county did not provide adequate mental health or drug counseling services.

“This problem has been ignored by city leaders for decades, and now we have seen a historic decline,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “I will not stop fighting until we end homelessness on the streets, because no Angeleno should be sleeping on the streets.”

Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this report.