Incoming Los Angeles Mayor Pledges to Halve Homeless Encampments Before the 2028 Olympics; a Local Activist Is “Not Optimistic”

Incoming Los Angeles Mayor Nithya Raman has promised to cut the number of people sleeping in tents and homeless encampments by at least 50% before the 2028 Summer Olympics, but one local activist believes her vision may not be realistic.

The city’s growing homeless population became a major focus of Raman’s mayoral campaign. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), she plans to expand shelter and housing options while stretching “every dollar as far as possible”.

John Alle, a business owner and co-founder of the Santa Monica Coalition, told Fox News Digital that Raman will not be able to “hide” the city’s homelessness problem from tourists arriving for the Games. “We’re not hiding it now. We’re seeing tourists being attacked in Santa Monica, we’re seeing tourists being attacked in LA. Our tourism, everything that funds our general fund, our retail sales taxes are all down,” he said.

Alle warned that Raman’s plan will be a temporary solution: homeless people will be picked up and sent elsewhere ahead of the Olympics, and will wander right back after the three-week Olympic and Paralympic events.

Former Mayor Karen Bass accepted the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony in Paris two years ago, marking the handoff of hosting duties. This will be the first time Los Angeles has hosted the Games since 1984.

According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s 2026 annual count, however, homelessness rose 3.4% in Los Angeles and 1.2% across the broader Los Angeles area, undoing two consecutive years of declines under Bass.

By the end of her first term, Raman has pledged to expand housing, shelter capacity and rental assistance to eliminate long-term encampments. She has previously called the city’s “desensitization to homelessness” a “moral failing”.

Her plan calls for sending medical teams directly into encampments to provide mental health and addiction treatment and help with transitions into long-term housing or care within 90 days. Raman has also criticised Bass’s Inside Safe programme, which often places homeless people in costly hotels and motels; instead she wants to shift funding toward less expensive alternatives such as rental vouchers.

Other parts of her proposal include sending unarmed crisis response teams rather than police officers to certain emergencies, auditing stalled housing projects and increasing oversight of homelessness spending.

Alle said there must be more transparency over how the city has handled more than $1 billion in homelessness funding before allocating more taxpayer dollars. “She’s got a billion-dollar problem on her hands right now, and she knows,” he said. He acknowledged, to her credit, that Raman wants to audit every non-profit and agency that spent the money. Raman chaired the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee from 2023 until her removal this year amid her mayoral campaign.

According to Alle, one of the biggest red flags in Raman’s plan is the proximity of supportive housing to families and children, and some facilities do not require residents to remain sober. He described Los Angeles as having a drug and mental health problem, not a homelessness problem, and said those two issues must be addressed first. “I’m not optimistic,” he said — but added: “Of course I want her to succeed. If Nithya succeeds, we all succeed.”

Raman ousted Bass in the midterm elections and will take office in December as mayor of Los Angeles, a city of roughly 4 million residents. Fox News Digital reached out to Raman’s team and LA28 for comment.