LA’s homelessness uptick lets Raman target Bass. If only accountability was that simple

Los Angeles has seen its progress against homelessness reversed. This year, the city's unhoused population rose to forty-five thousand, one hundred ninety-four—up from forty-three thousand, six hundred ninety-five. The uptick is reshaping the mayoral race: Mayor Karen Bass, running for reelection in November, faces a challenge from Councilmember Nithya Raman. Per CalMatters, Raman called the increase a 'moral outrage' and 'a failure.' She chairs the council's Housing Committee and has seen homelessness drop nearly fifty percent in her own district. Bass is campaigning on enforcement and police action; Raman, a democratic socialist, is pitching private development and deregulation to spur housing construction. It's an unusual reversal: in this liberal city, the incumbent is running as the law-and-order candidate while the socialist challenger is running as the pro-business reformer. Raman has pledged to cut street homelessness in half citywide by twenty twenty-eight, in time for the Olympics.

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