Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman is pushing back against Mayor Karen Bass’ claims that her administration has been effective at accelerating local homebuilding, as L.A. is named the nation’s worst major metro for affordability.
Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America running to unseat Bass, a Democrat, in the November mayoral election, argues that the incumbent has not meaningfully moved the needle on housing in L.A.
“Tens of thousands of Angelenos who are struggling to afford rent will agree that Mayor Bass has not done enough to address the housing crisis in this city,” Raman tells Realtor.com® in a statement.
The politician spoke out after Bass defended her record on housing and touted her administrative initiatives aimed at streamlining approval for tens of thousands of units of affordable housing. Those initiatives include a historic rezoning program with the goal of creating nearly 500,000 new homes by 2029, updating rent stabilization rules, and simplifying the review of building applications.
“After decades of inaction, Mayor Bass has been laser-focused on slashing red tape and accelerating the building of affordable housing in Los Angeles,” Bass’ office told Realtor.com in a statement Thursday.
Bass was responding to the findings of the 2026 Realtor.com® Metro Report Cards, in which L.A. earned an F grade, and the lowest combined score measuring both affordability and homebuilding metrics among the 100 largest U.S. cities.
California‘s most populous metro received a failing score of 12 out of a possible 100 points, dragged down by an abysmal affordability component score of just 0.9.
Assuming a 10% down payment and a 6.5% 30-year fixed mortgage, a median earner in L.A. would have to spend nearly 85% of their income on monthly mortgage payments on a $1.12 million median-priced home, effectively putting ownership out of reach of all but the wealthy elite.
“I’m not at all surprised that Los Angeles received an ‘F’ grade and was ranked as the least affordable metro area,” says Raman. “We’ve made it too difficult, time consuming, and costly to build homes in Los Angeles.”
Homebuilding hurdles
According to Raman, meaningful homebuilding remains marginal in L.A., despite broad consensus among experts that the city’s decades-long housing crisis stems from a systemic shortage of supply.
“We treat housing construction as a nuisance rather than something we desperately need,” says the mayoral candidate.
Data analysis behind the Metro Report Cards shows that Los Angeles’ permit-to-population ratio, measuring how many homes are being built relative to the number of people in the metro, currently sits at a paltry 0.47. That means the city’s permitted homes per resident is less than half the national average.
According to Raman, L.A. has made it “functionally illegal” to build affordable for-sale housing through its policies and a tangle of red tape.
“Today, less than 10% of the new homes built in L.A. are for-sale,” she claims. “Under current city and state regulations, for-sale projects are charged higher fees, have a more-complicated approval process, are easier to appeal, and have increased liability risks for developers.”
If elected, Raman pledges to triple annual housing production by speeding up the approval process, overhauling inspections, updating codes to create more starter homes, removing additional fees, and lobbying state lawmakers to pass liability reforms to incentivize developers to build more for-sale inventory.
Tackling homelessness in L.A.
Housing affordability and the closely linked issue of homelessness are the focal points of Raman’s mayoral campaign, with recent 2026 data showing roughly 45,000 people living in tents and encampments scattered across L.A.—an epidemic exacerbated by a shortage of affordable housing.
To highlight her approach to tackling the housing crisis, Raman has recently teamed up with real estate tycoon and “Selling Sunset” star Jason Oppenheim.
In a video posted Thursday to the Raman campaign’s official YouTube channel, which opens with a tongue-in-cheek spoof of the hit reality TV show, Raman and Oppenheim—who previously sparred on social media—set their past differences aside to discuss common ground on housing.
“I think everyone is rightfully frustrated at the current policy and the current direction of this city,” Oppenheim tells Raman as the two meet at The Oppenheim Group office in L.A. “I want to give you a chance, because I’ve been very impressed with the reduction of homelessness in your district.”
According to data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) homeless count, homelessness in Raman’s 4th District dropped 49% year over year—a statistic that has become central to her campaign pitch.
If she wins in November, Raman has pledged to cut citywide homelessness in half by the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
