Nithya Raman Faces Questions Over Eviction-Defense Program Funding
LOS ANGELES, CA – Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is facing scrutiny over a city-funded eviction-defense program she championed, as the city attorney has called for a full audit of the nonprofit administering it. Raman is also facing criticism from Mayor Karen Bass over her remarks about Los Angeles’s Black community.
In an October 9 report titled “Supplemental Report in the Public Interest,” Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said between $55 million and $87 million in funds provided to the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles by the city and county remained unaccounted for in publicly available information for 2021 through 2025.
The report said the nonprofit’s tax returns “suggest that the money may well have been used for other purposes, most notably to fund litigation against the very City that provided the funds.”
“The City’s interests requires a complete audit of and accounting from LAFLA of all of these amounts,” the report said.
The contract began in 2021 as a no-bid $7 million pilot programme and grew to more than $90 million. The $55 million to $87 million estimate had first appeared ...