The project is being funded by a $254,000 grant from Los Angeles County and will be run out of the Long Beach Multi-Service Center, potentially through June 2022.
Ricky Rodriguez, a formerly homeless resident of Century Villages at Cabrillo, was a fan of the Denver Broncos, who loved to talk movies and music with his niece. He was also the first person to be killed by another resident at the supportive housing complex since its inception in the 1990s.
The city says it now has a plan to clean up many of the homeless encampments along the 405, 710 and 91 freeways over the next year.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies were making their way down the stretch on Monday morning, talking with residents of the encampment and letting them know they had to leave.
Caltrans has indicated that it doesn’t have the funding to address cleanups and the city is unlikely to be reimbursed for efforts to keep areas in the state agency’s jurisdiction clean.
The nation’s most populous state has an estimated 161,000 people experiencing homelessness, which is more than any other state.
The goal behind Homeless Court is to get the City Prosecutor’s office, the City Attorney’s office, service providers and homeless people with pending criminal convictions to work together to ensure that warrants, tickets and other past misdemeanors don’t prevent homeless people from accessing services they need.
Detectives believe the victim and attacker had an argument, which escalated into the stabbing. The suspect fled the scene before officers arrived.
The site is one of three former hotels and motels in Long Beach that was purchased with funds from the state’s Project Homekey program.
Next month the Long Beach City Council will be asked to approve nearly $800,000 to help bolster encampment cleanups across the city.
