Nonprofit We Push For Peace has been riding the Metro Transit Light Rail morning and night for nearly a month.

Their presence is a part of Metro Transit’s “action plan” to improve safety for riders, and on Tuesday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS went along for the morning ride on the Green Line to see and hear what the group has observed over the last month.

It was an 8 a.m. call time to the Cub Foods parking lot in St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood.

“How was last week? Everything was good?” We Push For Peace Vice President Trent Pollard asked the group of about 10 staff members in matching red, logoed jackets as they strategized the four-hour ride ahead.

“We do four hours in the morning, and we’re doing four hours in a night,” Pollard said.

They spend the morning on the Green Line and the evening on the Blue Line, he added.

The group walked together to the nearby Hamline Avenue light rail station to board the first train. The red jackets were not always a welcome presence — and neither was the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew as they went along, hopping from car to car.

“You will notice when the people that are on here just to like, try to smoke, you know, the ones that don’t really want to receive the resources or get the help we try to extend,” Pollard said.

“Those are the ones that will try to jump from train to train so they can smoke. So we developed a method where it was like, ‘All right, you get off of this train, run to the next car, we right there too.'”

Pollard acknowledged resistance to their presence on the trains but said their interactions often end positively.

“We get called ‘Power Rangers,’ we get called ‘ladybugs,’ we get called a lot of different names,” he listed. “But when we get on the train, a lot of them respect what we’re trying to do, and they respond in that manner.”

Roughly 75% of people along the Tuesday morning ride, they see every day, Pollard said, adding that many riders come straight from shelters that close in the morning.

“Everybody that’s on the train is not here because they want to be. Some are really just trying to stay warm,” he continued.

Pollard, who was raised in the Twin Cities, said one of the hardest parts of the job emotionally is seeing people he grew up with on the train. He noted one such interaction on Tuesday.

As it stands, much of what the group is tasked with is stopping active drug use, which is prevalent on the trains.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS caught up with staff member Eric Patterson after several stops.

“We were walking through, talking with people on the train, telling them, ‘Good morning,’ seeing how their day is starting out,” Patterson began, sharing his first interaction of the day.

“And there was a young lady under the blanket, and you could smell the fumes. It’s like a different smell. You can’t describe it. So we asked her, could she please exit the train so that people can get to work without further incident.”

She got right off, Patterson reported. Asked, he said that level of cooperation is not the norm in his experience over the last few weeks.

“A lot of times, you know, they’re resistant,” he said. “They cuss at us, you know, sometimes they want to fight and brandish weapons. Like, it’s bad. And, you know, we’re here to try to help the people, you know, make the transition as smooth as possible on the way to work, school, wherever they’re trying to go.”

The bigger picture goal, though, for the group, is changing outcomes for the riders who often “just want to be heard,” multiple staff members and riders shared.

“You have to try to see it from their standpoint,” Patterson said. “Don’t judge them, just talk to them.”

Patterson, like many at We Push For Peace will tell you, that he was once “a part of being out in the streets.”

“Now I’m able to help change it,” he continued.

Multiple unhoused riders, although hesitant, concurred.

“They have helped quite a few of the people that I associate with on this train,” a woman named Jessica shared along the ride.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS also witnessed a veteran without a home, Anastasio, get set up with a long-term bed after a conversation with a We Push For Peace staff member spanning several stops.

Anastasio, in tears, said he wants more people to know about the group and what they can offer.

“There are so many really good people out here, you know, and we’re just caught in a cycle that we need help getting out of,” he shared.

Each minute and every connection is a chance to chip away at that cycle, Pollard said, adding, “It takes time and consistency. It doesn’t just happen overnight.”