I live in downtown Long Beach. It’s a very convenient place. Lots of stuff within walking distance.

One downside?

Lots of homeless folks within a few blocks. Well, actually, like one block away.

But I have noticed this weekend — the same weekend as the city’s biggest event of the year — that some of those folks with shopping carts and battered backpacks and the sort of wind-burned tans most often seen on those “living rough” … are gone.

Missing.

Dave Wielenga, who I first knew as a sports writer with the Long Beach Press-Telegram, now works for The District Weekly. And he has an idea where they might all have gone. More or less.

Wielenga has done a very interesting story for The District about the steadfast belief among the local homeless (and those who serve them) that the city quietly makes a point of rounding up the homeless and moving them out of town or incarcerating them for the duration of the race weekend.

You can read that story here.

I’m thinking there is something to this particular urban legend.

My wife walks to work five days a week, and she reports that the No. 1 homeless haunt, during daylight hours, Lincoln Park on Pacific Avenue, has been nearly empty since Wednesday.

I just took a look at the church across the street from where I live, a place where dozens of homeless people “bed” down for the night on the sidewalk … and I see two people — instead of the usual couple of dozen.

In a way, I can see why the city does what it does. The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach brings this city more attention than any other single even in the year. And city officials don’t want the tens of thousands of fans who come down to the shoreline for the on-city-streets race to have to wade through panhandling beggars or not-quite-sane folks off their meds.

The methods Wielenga suggests are employed appear to be legal … if a little cheesy. Invoking outstanding warrants, etc.

Long Beach is a haven for the homeless for several reasons. High on the list being its temperate clime, year-round, which makes it a lot easier to sleep under a bridge or on the church steps or in the weeds next to a freeway offramp. Also, more than a few charities around here help them with the basics. The church across the street, for instance, feeds them dinner most days.

I should note I have had zero problems with the homeless guys (and almost all of them are guys) in the year I’ve been downtown. They look a bit threatening, especially at night, and I warn female friends and relatives not to park in certain areas so that they can avoid having to interact with the homeless. But I have not been approached, or been threatened, and when I was parking my car on the street, it never was broken into, etc.

Anyway, the homeless. They’ve gone missing. No surprise, apparently. It’s Grand Prix weekend.

The “good” news is … that they will apparently be back on Monday, when the fans have gone home and the drivers and TV crews are packed and on their way to the next stop on the Indy Racing League circuit.