Monday, April 20, LAist AirTalk host Larry Mantle sat down with mayoral candidates Nithya Raman and Rae Huang for back-to-back interviews, providing students and guests a chance to hear the candidates’ vision on solving some of Los Angeles’ most pressing issues of housing, homelessness, and public safety.
The event was part of LAist’s one-on-one candidate interview series at LMU, designed to move beyond short, debate-style exchanges and allow candidates to explain their governing ideologies in more depth.
Raman is a Councilmember for District 4 in Los Angeles and has spent much of her career involved with urban planning and grassroots organizations. She first announced her last-minute campaign at a press conference in February.
The Councilwoman expressed her dissatisfaction with City Hall’s effectiveness, citing unresolved concerns over housing, homelessness, and public safety. On Monday, she addressed this discontent while offering more transparency and “hard work” as solutions for L.A. residents.
Rae Huang — a Presbyterian minister, community organizer, and affordable housing advocate — also criticized City Hall’s lack of action in addressing housing and worker needs. However, Huang continues to promote her ground-up approach to addressing the city’s needs and has placed faith in community organizations and coalition-building to aid the process.
Budget
On the morning of the conversation, Mayor Karen Bass released her new budget proposal, which Raman said contained similar material to her campaign, such as an increased budget for infrastructure projects. However, Raman described the budget as being “a tiny growth from what was an extraordinarily depleted moment,” referring to LA’s billion-dollar deficit last year.
Raman pointed to a lack of liability and fiscal management as a major cause of this large deficit. To prevent sweeping layoffs, she said the city had to cut back on funding of services like public infrastructure, claiming widespread inefficiencies and slow response times.
“To see that we are trumpeting a slight increase in services from last year feels like a hollow improvement,” said Raman. “Angelenos should not be expecting so little from their government.”
Huang was also frustrated with the city’s lack of effort, but felt optimism with community efforts. She noted community success with legislation such as Measure A, Measure ULA, and the Olympic Wage. While successful in passing important bills, “the challenge is that City Hall has not been doing their job,” she said.
Measure ULA
Measure ULA — the “Mansion Tax” implemented in 2023 — is a city tax that imposes a 4% fee on property transfers over $5.3 million and 5.5% if over $10.6 million, with the revenues then intended to be redistributed to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention.
Raman was an original supporter of this tax and prided herself on her effort to pass it. “I was really excited for it. It gave us the first revenue source for affordable housing, construction, and eviction defense that the city had access to.”
However, she has since acknowledged its unintended consequences: reducing the number of high-value property transactions and estimating that the odds of a property selling above the $5 million threshold dropped by as much as 50%.
This is a particular concern in the construction of multi-family units, prompting Raman to backtrack. She has since advocated for exempting the construction of multifamily units from the measure, citing a decline in housing construction following the measure, which dropped by an estimated 30-50%.
Huang differs in her stance on Measure ULA and took pride in the coalition building and community organizing that went into passing the legislation. “They [the community] have been so frustrated with the fact that the city hasn’t been helping us meet our needs… so we have taken it into our own hands.”
Huang continued on in support, claiming, “It has been working well in ensuring homelessness prevention. We have seen numbers drop in terms of the numbers of homelessness.” She attributes these successes to tenant protection enforcement, emergency measures, and support for seniors experiencing homelessness. She also opposed the common concern that Measure ULA has prevented the development of more housing supply, particularly multifamily units. She claims that a recent report shows the measure has not inhibited supply and hasn’t reduced development.
Inside Safe
The budget also maintains last year’s budget for the city’s Inside Safe program, launched by Mayor Karen Bass to address homelessness and previously supported by Raman.
On Monday, Raman admitted the flaws of the program, including the lack of mental health support in homeless shelters. “Mental health services are desperately needed for people. I know the need…It’s a very large need,” said Raman.
But Raman still encouraged continuing the program’s ‘encampment resolution’ technique, while investing more in shelters dedicated to this resolution.
Raman has previously used and supported this technique in her own district. “Encampment resolution is a relatively new way of addressing homelessness, but it’s very effective at getting people indoors, off the streets,” she said.
While Raman wants to add to Inside Safe, Huang presented a more critical stance. “The first thing I want to do when I get into office is ensure that our city control is able to audit Inside Safe,” she said.
“So much of what happened with the Inside Safe program happened behind closed doors; we need to actually be able to make the full process transparent,” said Huang in calls for increased accountability for the program’s funding.
While both candidates are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), they differ greatly in their approach to addressing the needs of the people. Raman, condemning the current management throughout City Hall, believes that “change needs to be driven from the top.”
On the other hand, Huang has broader aspirations. She believes that through building strong coalition networks, she says the question to her becomes less about “how are we going to be able to do these things? And the question really is more about, do we have a big enough imagination?”
Ahead of the mayoral elections on June 2, next week, Mayor Karen Bass is visiting for the third part of the series hosted by LAist’s Larry Mantle.
Photos by Devin Feil/LMU.
