Long Beach’s downtown business district has been complaining for weeks that the “end of line” policy of Metro of clean their trains at long beach every night he was contributing to the city’s homeless problem.
Now Metro wants to move the “End of the Line” away from the center. Currently, the line is free every night at First Street and Long Beach Boulevard.
The plan is to move it three miles north to create what Metro called a “Hope Center.”
They allege that homeless people are forced to leave the station when the train ends its journey at night, causing problems for communities.
There are five stops before downtown Long Beach from the Willow stop to the Wardlow stop to the north. Both stops are seen as new ‘End of Line’ locations which would also house a ‘homeless service centre’ which provides showers, phone charging and temporary accommodation for homeless people using line A .
“I understand how they are trying to help. I just don’t know how well citizens living in the area will react,” said Sandra Aceves, a resident of the area.
Donna Casiano, a resident who has lived her whole life in the Wrigley neighborhood, believes the center is a good start to solving the problem that already exists there.
“It has to start somewhere, the more places there are for these services the better,” said Jewels Long Beach, a resident of the Wrigley neighborhood.
That’s why the Los Angeles City Council and Metro held a community meeting Monday at Veteran’s Park to let people know about Metro’s efforts to relax its current “end of line” policy that puts most homeless commuters near 1st Street in downtown Long Beach each night.
The City of Long Beach and Metro held a meeting Monday evening where they expected many questions from the community.
This story first appeared on Telemundo 52’s sister station NBCLA. Click on here read this story in english