Three years ago, an effort to relocate Santa Monica’s largest homeless services provider was thwarted by resident objections.
Now, officials at Ocean Park Community Center have announced plans to buy a building at the intersection of Cloverfield Boulevard and Michigan Avenue. If all goes according to plan, the $5 million building would undergo a $4 million renovation and be ready for use in one year once the escrow period ends in about three months.
OPCC — which has a $7 million annual budget — currently rents space from the city in the Big Blue Bus building, located at 612 Colorado Ave. It must move because the bus operation needs more space.
OPCC officials said last week that they plan to meet with neighbors and include them in discussions about the property, where plans call for beds for 55 people and daytime services for as many as 250.
So this week Q-Line wants to know: “Is Cloverfield Boulevard and Michigan Avenue an appropriate location for the city’s largest homeless services provider? Why or why not? If not, where else should it go?”
Call (310) 285-8106 before Thursday at 5 p.m. and we’ll print your response in Friday’s paper. Please limit your call to one minute or less. It might help to think first about the wording of your response.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 16, 2003. Read the original PDF.