After Los Angeles County voted to withdraw funding from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and create its own county-run homeless services department, questions remain about its future impact on the city of Los Angeles. 

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman has outlined concerns over the lack of potential input that the city could have over homeless services spending moving forward.

She joined “Inside the Issues” host Amrit Singh to discuss them.

“LAHSA has a lot of problems, there are no questions about that...but this particular vote today, what it does is it takes a city-county entity that was designed to coordinate services...over which I have very little oversight, authority or input,” said Raman. “That’s something I have a lot of questions about. It may be better, but I just don’t know what this change means for people who are experiencing homelessness in our city streets.”

As the chair of the housing and homelessness committee, Raman said the vote could impact the encouraging trend of decreasing homelessness in LA. 

“[Last year] We saw a more than 10% reduction in street homelessness. I saw a more than 40% reduction in my district...for the first time, it feels like we are actually writing the ship,” Raman said.  “Now my question is what happens to that ship and what happens to the most vulnerable residents who are experiencing homelessness?”

Councilmember Raman also discussed the city council’s recent vote to strengthen LA’s home-sharing ordinance and the city's projected budget shortfall.