A LATINO AGENDA FOR LOS ANGELES
A Los Angeles That Works for Latino Families
Since its founding, Latinos have shaped this city and today make up nearly half of Los Angeles.
Latinos are not a monolith. They are renters and homeowners, union workers and small-business owners, immigrants and U.S.-born families.
Latino Angelenos keep this city moving. It's time for the City to do more to keep them here.
Support Latino-Owned Businesses and Entrepreneurs
For generations, Latino Angelenos have built businesses with limited access to capital, navigated complicated permitting systems, worked in the informal economy, and created jobs and opportunity. Too often they've succeeded despite City Hall, not because of it.
Our Plan:
Cut red tape for small businesses. A permitting shot clock and a single-inspector model.
Make LA a national model for street vending. Easier permits, protection from harassment, and vending zones with sinks, power, restrooms, and shade.
Create an Immigrant Economic Opportunity Hub. Permitting help, financing, and legal guidance in one place.
Make major investments deliver for Latino businesses. Provide business interruption assistance for businesses hurt by major construction, and help small and minority-owned businesses compete for city and LA28 contracts, with clear timelines and accountability.
Bring Olympic jobs to Latino neighborhoods. Make sure LA28 and other major investments create good-paying jobs and apprenticeships for Latino workers.
Reinvest in the Birthplace of LA: Revitalize El Pueblo and Olvera Street as a vibrant Latino cultural, entertainment, and commercial district, and support the merchants struggling with city rents, low foot traffic, and years of neglect.
Good Jobs and Dignity for Every Worker
Los Angeles is the nation's wage theft capital. Workers in LA County lose an estimated $26 million in wages every week. Every worker deserves to be paid what they've earned, and our workforce programs should be judged by whether people get hired, stay employed, and see their wages grow.
Our Plan:
Stand with workers. Defend the right to organize, bargain collectively, and earn a living wage, and strengthen enforcement against wage theft.
Expand pathways to good-paying careers. Apprenticeships, union pathways, and certifications for Latino workers and young people.
Make childcare more affordable. So parents can work, raise their families, and build their careers.
Prevent and End the Rise of Latino Homelessness
Homelessness is the issue that first brought Nithya into public service. Latinos make up 46% of people experiencing homelessness in the City of LA, and 28% of Latino renters countywide spend more than half their income on rent. Language barriers and immigration-related challenges make it even harder for some to move from shelter into permanent housing, but it doesn't have to be this way.
Our Plan:
Protect renters. Build on the protections Nithya helped lead, including the first cut in allowable rent increases in 40 years.
Get people indoors and into lasting housing. Expand the outreach that helped cut street homelessness by half in Nithya's district in one year.
Follow the money and demand results. Build on the Bureau of Homelessness Oversight Nithya created. After Nithya’s push for better performance data, city-funded shelter beds went from 80% to 94% occupied, and all new permanent supportive housing is now over 90% occupancy.
Invest in culturally inclusive services. Promotoras, ESL classes, and help getting identification and immigration documents.
Keep Latino Families in Their Homes and Neighborhoods
Of the homes built in Los Angeles over the last decade, only about 6% sold at a price the average Latino household can afford. Housing affordability is an economic issue, a family issue, and a question of whether longtime Angelenos will still have a place in the city they built. Our first responsibility is to stop preventable displacement while expanding pathways to long-term ownership.
Our Plan:
Build housing with the urgency of an emergency, including in higher-income neighborhoods that have long restricted development.
Open new pathways to homeownership. Expand shared-equity programs and keep improving down-payment assistance.
Help families build wealth with ADUs.
Protect mixed-status families. Limit collection of sensitive immigration information and connect families to trusted legal help. Provide clear, multilingual guidance to mixed-status families when federal housing rules change.
Clean Air, More Shade, Healthier Neighborhoods
Latino neighborhoods in California face 1.4 times the traffic density of non-Latino neighborhoods, just 4% tree canopy on average, and 1.6 times more extreme heat days, raising the risk of asthma, lung cancer, and heart disease. No community should have to accept polluted air or industrial hazards because of its ZIP code.
Our Plan:
Shut down Lineage and hold it accountable for harming the health of Eastside families.
End neighborhood oil drilling. Require strong accountability, cleanup, and environmental protections.
More trees, shade, and cooling in the neighborhoods hit hardest by extreme heat.
Protect Immigrant Families and Make the Sanctuary Policy a Real Promise
Every immigrant family in Los Angeles faces the same enforcement threat, whether they're Latino, Asian, Armenian, Middle Eastern, or African. ICE raids have torn families apart, and people are being targeted because of the color of their skin. No parent should have to wonder whether they'll be able to pick up their kids from school. Being a sanctuary city must be more than a declaration.
Our Plan:
Enforce the Sanctuary City Ordinance Nithya co-authored, and audit city practices, including LAPD's, so city data and resources are never used for immigration enforcement.
Defend TPS holders and fight for a path to legal status.
Expand legal defense and Know Your Rights. Increase funding for RepresentLA and deportation-defense services.
Build a trusted safety network. A hub connecting immigrant residents with legal services, raid-response organizations, and credible information.
Build Safe, Clean, and Healthy Neighborhoods
Public safety involves investing in city services that work for all. Safety is a streetlight that works, a sidewalk a grandmother can walk down at night, and shade at a bus stop on a 100-degree day. Too many Latino neighborhoods are called unsafe when what they're really experiencing is years of disinvestment.
Our Plan:
Send the right help when you call. Make sure 911 calls are answered, and expand unarmed crisis response so trained civilian responders handle mental health and other nonviolent calls.
Build trust and accountability. Strengthen independent civilian oversight and invest in community violence prevention and youth programs.
Fix the basics that keep neighborhoods safe. Lighting, trees, and shade on streets, parks, transit stops, and schools.
Make buses faster and more reliable.
Build a City Hall That Looks Like and Works for Los Angeles
Representation is not symbolic. A city that is nearly half Latino must reflect Latino leadership throughout its government, from commissioners and general managers to deputy mayors.
Latino families work hard, sacrifice, and do everything they can to give their kids opportunities they never had. They deserve a City Hall that works just as hard as they do.
Nithya isn't asking Latino Angelenos to join her cause. She's joining theirs.