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Committee confirms two nominees to citizen oversight panel for ULA housing program
Summary
A City Council committee approved the nominations of Fernando Abarca and Antonio Raut to the citizen oversight committee that will review United-to-House/ULA housing work; both nominees described relevant community and service experience.
A Los Angeles City Council committee approved two nominations to the citizen oversight committee that will oversee elements of the United-to-House/ULA housing efforts.
The committee confirmed Fernando Abarca and Antonio Raut. Fernando Abarca described himself as a community organizer with experience in cooperative housing and community land-trust finance; Antonio Raut said he has worked for about 20 years in elder care and in linking residents with regional service and licensing systems.
The appointments matter because the oversight committee will review implementation of the city’s housing programs associated with United-to-House/ULA and related funding. Councilmembers who moved the items said they expected the nominees’ backgrounds to inform oversight and service coordination.
Fernando Abarca told the committee he has organized around housing and cooperative ownership and helped create a loan fund intended to provide non‑extractive capital for community projects. "El fondo lo que mayormente queremos hacer es apoyar permanencia, economicabilidad, habilidad y gobernanza también," he said. Abarca described prior experience working on cooperative conversions and raising flexible capital to keep housing affordable.
Antonio Raut described two decades of work serving older adults and acting as a liaison between regional service centers and residential programs. He said his roles included ensuring providers complied with contractual and licensing requirements and developing corrective plans when operations risked losing licensing.
Committee members questioned nominees about relevant experience; one councilmember cited Abarca’s work with a Minneapolis cooperative project as evidence of practical experience raising flexible investment and working with city subsidy to make deals feasible. Committee members praised Raut’s experience working with multilingual elder populations and health‑and‑wellness programming.
Both nominations were approved by roll call. For Abarca’s nomination the clerk recorded Councilmember Raman and Councilmember Jurado voting yes; Councilmember Bloomfield was recorded absent. The committee approved Raut’s nomination with the same recorded disposition.
The committee advanced both appointments to the full City Council for final confirmation.
