Councilmember Nithya Raman is a fearless champion for the people of Los Angeles. She has focused her years in public service on creating an affordable, livable city, and holding our City government accountable to deliver change.

As a working mom, she saw people struggling on our streets and decided to do something about it. She co-founded the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition and began organizing her neighbors to provide direct help. But as the crisis grew, she realized volunteer efforts alone would never match the scale of the problem.

So she stepped up to lead.

In 2020, Nithya ran for City Council as a complete outsider – no political machine, no insider backing. What followed was a grassroots movement: 2,000 volunteers knocked on over 80,000 doors, and she defeated a sitting councilmember for the first time in 17 years. The Los Angeles Times described it as “a political earthquake.”

In the City Council, Nithya has worked tirelessly to lower housing costs and build more housing. She has passed legislation to accelerate housing production through zoning and planning reforms and overhaul permitting processes to eliminate unnecessary delays. She has championed tenant protections, leading the charge to pass the strongest set of renter protections in the entire country – including revising the Rent Stabilization Ordinance to reduce rental increases for the first time in 40 years, creating a right-to-counsel program, and adopting anti-displacement measures. She has also championed many sustainability initiatives and environmental action to create a healthier Los Angeles.

Nithya has worked to reform the City’s approach to homelessness, pushing for greater oversight of City spending, strengthening data collection, and improving coordination between City departments and service providers. Under her leadership, her district saw some of the largest drops in unsheltered homelessness across the City.

Nithya believes Los Angeles is in a moment of crisis that requires urgency, accountability, and ambition, not half-measures and protecting the status quo.

Nithya lives in Silver Lake with her husband and young twins. She is an urban planner by training, received her bachelors degree from Harvard and graduate degree from MIT, and is an immigrant to America from India.