CommentsDEEGAN ON LA - (Number 6 in a series about Councilperson Nithya Raman (CD4).) Councilmember Nithya Raman (CD4) is not ready to “press play” on clearing out homeless encampments.
For now, her actions and votes shout out “wait” at a time when fed-up residents all over the city are calling out for “action!”
Raman wants permanent housing and services aligned with any encampment removals, while many in the city want clean sidewalks and sheltering of the unsheltered. In these desperate times for people experiencing homelessness; we may have crossed a threshold where it’s only a matter of nuance that any roof is better than no roof.
For years, the burgeoning humanitarian, public health and safety crisis has been viewed as a priority at City Hall. Whatever it took was thrown at it: compassion and empathy, billions of dollars, overpriced construction of housing for the homeless, campaign promises. The one thing no politico ever said was “it can wai
t.” That is, until Raman.
Earlier this summer, the City Council came close to passing a motion to deal with sidewalk encampments of tent cities that have become a stain that now emblemizes Los Angeles.
Thirteen of the fifteen councilmembers voted “yes” for it. Raman and Councilmember Kevin DeLeón (CD14), who may be a Mayoral candidate next year, opposed it, forcing the motion to a second vote thirty days later, after the council returned from its summer break.
That pause resulted in nothing new. Raman squandered the gift of one month in which she could have created her own tent encampment proposal. Instead, she sat on her hands, lifting one hand only long enough to vote “no,” again, on the motion when it was presented again to the council. DeLeon changed his vote to “yes,” and Councilmember Mike Bonin (CD11) switched from a “yes” to a “no,” joining Raman as the only other dissenter on the re-vote.
Concurrent with the council vote, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo presented the council with a Street Engagement Strategy that is a proposal for how to clean up the sidewalks. It’s not airtight, having some major loopholes, but it looked like a start until it was sent to committee, where it was diluted. The highlights of the original plan included:
- An encampment is OK if less than 10 tents.
- It is OK if less than 30 campers.
- It must allow 36 inches for ADA clearance.
- It must be more than 5 feet from a fire hydrant, driveway, or doorway.
- A councilperson must get a council resolution identifying which encampment they want to take action against.
- The council must vote for it.
- Notice to move must be posted for 14 days, after a councilperson has brought the matter to the full council for a resolution.
- An "engagement" with a camper could take up to four months.
- Offering of shelter and resources do not have to be accepted by a camper.
- A camp cannot be within 500 feet of schools, parks, shelters, and libraries.
- Nothing will happen quickly.
It was immediately referred to the Homelessness and Poverty Committee, chaired by Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas (CD10), for review. Raman joined her H+P committee colleagues approving the reduction of the Street Engagement Strategy to a single-stroke program rather than the comprehensive one that had just been presented to the council making it possible to clear many tents at once.
Raman, unlike the very vocal councilmembers Ridley-Thomas, DeLeón, Bonin and Buscaino, sat on her hands again and did not engage in the passionate committee discussion about the program. Public comment speakers, in their allotted one-minute at the microphone to express their views, said more than she did.
Raman was a spectator except for eliciting from both the chair and the CAO the assurance that only one encampment per district would be targeted for engagement and removal, and that no other encampments would be touched until an assessment of the “pilot” program occurs next Spring.
The councilperson has a more languid approach than some of her colleagues. Going slowly continues to be her methodology. Her homeless constituents can take solace that they won’t be forced out anytime soon, as long as they follow existing laws relating to distance from fire hydrants, driveways, and doorways.
The new “Lite” version of the Street Engagement Strategy, says:
- Pick just one location in each of the fifteen council districts.
- “Triage" each district’s “pilot location.”
- Report back to the Homelessness and Poverty Committee in February 2022 on the results and “lessons learned.”
- Nothing will happen quickly.
The plan is a shadow of its former self for which no results will be known until next Spring. Intellectualized by Ridley-Thomas as a “system,” it privileges the homeless and their politico codependents. It actually delays and defers cleaning up our ugly sidewalks until there is a test called “a triage” that sees if the “system” works.
There was a sharp exchange of views on this between declared 2022 Mayoral candidate Joe Buscaino (CD15) and committee Chair Mark Ridley-Thomas, with MRT at one point characterizing it as a partisan difference between “progressives” and “conservatives.”
Buscaino has announced he will be a “Clean Streets” candidate for Mayor who will “offer anyone living on our streets a place to stay. . .if they refuse to leave, they could face citation or arrest.”
He’s the exact opposite of Raman on the encampment issue and may find real traction with voters who want to see visible results now, not later. He’s on record as a speaker at the H+P committee hearing that he can’t support the Street Engagement Strategy as amended by the committee.
Governor Newsom, who could be called somewhat progressive, is facing a recall in a few weeks with a key issue being how he’s handled the homeless crisis. That third-rail issue will be at the forefront of voter’s minds when half the City Council, the City Attorney, and the Mayor are all up for election next Spring.
Ridley-Thomas just announced he will not be running for Mayor next year. Nithya Raman has only been in office for several months. But she is already facing a recall herself launched by community activists who say she’s underwater on the job.
It’s not a good time to be a politico delaying visible results and raising public anger about the sidewalk-dwelling homeless. It’s something that can’t wait.
Read the other articles in this series for additional background on Raman’s approach to the homelessness crisis:
Part 1 - “Watching Nithya Raman - Part 1,” posted on CityWatch on June 6, 2021.
Part 2 - “Nithya Raman’s Hollywood Homeless Headache”, posted on CityWatch on June 28, 2021.
Part 3 – “Nithya Raman Puts Community Second in Her Homeless Housing Plans,” posted on CityWatch on July 1, 2021.
Part 4 – “Nithya Raman Presses Pause on New Homeless Rules,” posted on CityWatch on July 12, 2021.
Part 5 – “Nithya Raman Blasts the City’s New Homeless Encampment Regulations - She May Get the Last Laugh,” posted on CityWatch on August 1, 2021.
Coming soon: Part 7, Raman’s role in the developer threats to neighborhoods that have homeowners telling her, “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY). Part 7 - A Public Bank for Los Angeles. Additional topics: TBD.
This multi-part CityWatch series will continue. Readers in the CD4 communities of Los Feliz, Miracle Mile, Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Greater Hancock Park and Toluca Lake are welcome to send tips and comments to the writer at [email protected]. Tips and comments from readers citywide are also welcome. Requests for anonymity will be respected as long as the writer is privately identified to CityWatch.
(Tim Deegan is a civic activist whose DEEGAN ON LA weekly column about city planning, new urbanism, the environment, and the homeless appears in CityWatch. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
