Nithya Raman

Nithya Raman is an urban planner who has spent her entire career working on urban poverty and women's rights. In India, she led work bolstering slum dwellers' access to basic necessities like running water, toilets, and land rights. 

In Los Angeles, she co-founded SELAH, one of the most active homeless coalitions in the city that serves an area severely lacking in resources and wrote a report for City Hall showing that LA spent 4x more on jailing our unhoused neighbors than on providing the services that would get them off the streets for good. She served as the first executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment, the women's rights organization that emerged from MeToo activism.

She is currently a candidate for Los Angeles City Council in District 4, who has advanced to the November runoff with one of the strongest showings against an incumbent in LA history. Nithya has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a Masters in Urban Planning from MIT. She lives in Silver Lake with her husband and twin preschoolers.