Nithya Raman

And I think you have to address both the homelessness crisis that is on the streets.

You have to address the mental health issues that are out there.

And you have to address very obvious criminal activity that's happening there, drug dealing and other kinds of things for which you need police presence there constantly.

Dealing with really ugly issues that are out there that require their attention, investigation and arrests.

And I think if you do both of those things, if you are really, again, robustly engaged.

pushing with all your might on that issue.

I do think that you can make some real improvements there.

We have had, in Council District 4, where I've been engaged, we don't have anything that resembles that scale of crisis.

But we did have very large encampments, very, very large encampments, 30, 40 people that were there when I first got elected.

And each of those, addressing each of those, took that kind of effort.

We were able to offer shelter, services, housing, and really push on the system to be able to address issues.

There were cases where we had to work a much longer time to address people who had severe mental health issues, who, you know, despite repeated engagement, even arrests that came about from their own behavior would end up right back in the same place.

That requires engaging with the Department of Mental Health.

That requires engaging with mental health clinicians.

It takes time.

But again, with time and effort, progress can happen.

And I think the key, the missing link here, the thing that I keep articulating over and over again, is that you have to put in the time and the urgency and the leadership and the focus on these things that can actually push things in the right direction.

And it has to be sustained over time.

I think that for me, like on the issue of encampments or the issue of homelessness overall, to me I think it is, and actually let me take a step back, whatever issue that we're talking about here in the city of Los Angeles, I think the issue for me as a person who is deeply progressive, as someone who believes in the power of government to do good things and to make our lives better,

My goal is to ensure that you as a resident of Los Angeles and every resident of Los Angeles feels like the government is working for them and that they can palpably feel the positive presence of government in their lives.