She helped impoverished communities in India. Now Nithya Raman wants to help L.A.
When urban planner Nithya Raman ran for Los Angeles City Council in November, she pledged to take on a herculean task: finding permanent dwelling for the city’s more than 41,000 unhoused residents.
California is home to nearly a quarter of the nation’s homeless population. But the progressive policies Raman advocated for — defund the police and build a half-million units of government-owned housing — seemed radical to many residents in the district she won, which stretches from the neighborhoods of Silver Lake to North Hollywood and has some of the highest homeownership rates in L.A.
In response, she led a grassroots campaign that mobilized large swaths of the city’s electorate who don’t typically vote in local elections: low-income renters, including many immigrants. In a race that saw historic turnout, she became the first South Asian and first Asian woman elected to the office, as well as the first person in nearly two decades to unseat an incumbent council member.
“One of the reasons I ran for office was because in L.A., historically, City Council elections haven’t had a lot of participation from voters,” Raman, 39, told NBC Asian America. “Usually, they’re homeowners in a city that’s majority renters — and they’re not as diverse as the city as a whole. Because so many more of these voters voted, to me their needs needed to be heard at City Hall.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/helped-impoverished-communities-india-now-nithya-raman-wants-help-l-rcna1822