00:00Nithya Rahman's work on one issue launched her from activist to one of Los Angeles's most influential politicians, who chairs
00:08L.A.'s Housing and Homelessness Committee.
00:11I can deliver the change that people want and need.
00:14Now, that same issue may be her biggest vulnerability in her bid to become L.A.'s first Democratic Socialist mayor,
00:22homelessness.
00:23No, zero progress. It feels worse.
00:27What we're doing is not working.
00:28Do you support the ordinance that restricts encampments in front of schools or daycare centers? Ms. Rahman, yes or no?
00:35I, you know, I, I.
00:37She doesn't think there's a difference between one foot or 500 feet for kids' safety with drug addicts with machetes
00:43in front of kids.
00:44In this video, we'll break down the rise and possible fall of Nithya Rahman, who faces off against incumbent mayor
00:51Karen Bass in the November runoff election after her surprise defeat of Spencer Pratt.
00:56Rahman was born in India.
00:59Rahman was born in India. She moved with her family to Louisiana when she was six years old and became
01:03a naturalized U.S. citizen at age 22.
01:06She received her bachelor's degree in social studies at Harvard and her master's degree in urban planning at MIT.
01:12Before living in Los Angeles, Rahman moved back to India, where she worked on bridging the gap between city services
01:19and the urban poor.
01:20Rahman moved to L.A. in 2013.
01:22She initially worked for the city and wrote a report that resulted in L.A. reallocating some of the money
01:29spent on arresting homeless people to preventing it through services and housing.
01:33In 2017, she helped found the neighborhood homeless coalition, SELA.
01:38Rahman was a political outsider at the time, who defeated an incumbent L.A. city council member in 2020.
01:45That made her the first South Asian woman elected to L.A. city council and the first council member endorsed
01:51by the Democratic Socialists of America.
01:53But as she runs for mayor nearly six years into her tenure as a council member and chair of the
01:58Housing and Homelessness Committee, Rahman is now being judged on the very crisis that helped launch her political career.
02:05And for many Angelenos, homelessness remains the biggest symbol of City Hall's shortcomings.
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