Business owners and residents in Downtown Long Beach are pointing the finger at one variable they hope they can change, the end of the line Metro policy.
They are "We see naked people. We had a homeless man yesterday masturbating believe it or not," said Andre Angles, the Thai District restaurant owner.
Metro trains like the A Line specifically makes its last stop in the heart of Downtown Long Beach every night.
A video from a resident shows what happens to the last four trains. Police on the platform can be seen forcing everyone off.
Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.
"These people who had no intention to get off at Long Beach, no reason to come here," said Joe Harding, a Long Beach property manager. "But they're forced off with nowhere to go."
Council member Suzie Price helped draft a letter the council sent to Metro Tuesday night. In the letter they are asking to evaluate the end of the line policy to find alternatives to leaving people to fend for themselves in Long Beach. She suggests working with Metro outreach teams as one option.
"We can't take on a larger portion of our regional share of this regional crisis," Price said. "Connecting them with services at that moment, I think would be incredibly effective and mitigate the impact to the city of Long Beach."
Metro says the policy is not unique to Long Beach and happens at many end-of-the-line stops as a way to clear trains before returning them to division yards for maintenance and prepare them for the next day of service. But for some residents and business owners near the end of the line they say they're feeling the unfair brunt of the ongoing homeless crisis.
"It's hurting business, it's embarrassing," Angles said.
City leaders and residents tell NBC4 they don't blame Metro for the influx of homeless people in Long Beach. They do point out that in the latest homeless count, almost half of those who are homeless in Long Beach don't have any connection to the city.
"The burden is falling on us. We're caring and understanding and we are supportive and understand the issues they're going through," Harding said. "We're not trained to deal with that here, we're not."
