You want to know why Santa Ana is such a mess? We reported this week about a young man who dropped out of a good high school, Godinez Fundamental, and was shot dead at the age of 18, at 1 am. While he was not a gang member he was a drug runner, according to my son James who went to school with Jeffrey “Jay Jay” Enriquez, the shooting victim.
Enriquez had seven brothers and sisters. I can’t tell from his Facebook page if he had a dad around. In that he was just like a lot of kids in Santa Ana, which is Orange County’s youngest city – we have more kids under 18 than any other city in our County.
It will cost an estimated $241,080 for a middle-income couple to raise a child born last year for 18 years, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released last year. That’s up almost 3% from 2011 and doesn’t even include the cost of college, according to CNN.
Now now are these families supposed to properly raise their kids when so many households in our city are led by single moms? And where the heck are all the dads? The reality is that the government is the major provider in many of these homes. Is it any surprise that the Democratic Party prevails in this city? That party the social welfare programs that sustain so many families in our city, in the absence of functional families.
Our nation’s ill-conceived drug war accounts for many of these absent dads, who end up rotting in jail while their kids are recruited by gangs to sell drugs. The gangs in our city know that these kids cannot go to jail if they get busted. They go to Juvenile Hall instead.
I have friends who are teachers here in Santa Ana who tell me that in many cases the families of the youthful drug runners know that they are selling drugs. But they look the other way because these kids bring home a lot of money.
There is another culprit – the Catholic Church. In the book Underdevelopment is a State of Mind, by Lawrence E. Harrison, the Catholic Church is exposed as a major opponent of any kind of birth control and family planning, wherever it maintains an emotional and religious grip around the minds and necks of the average people of any country. Thus, such countries as Mexico, suffer untold and eternal illiteracy and poverty because they cannot get out from under the burden of too many children and no way to educate, feed or provide jobs for them. (Click here for more info about this topic).
Here in Santa Ana we have a lot of Catholic residents – go to any Catholic Church on a Sunday and you will see that they have to hold six to ten services to deal with all the crowds.
It is quite ironic how many of Orange County’s most powerful Republicans also happen to be arch-conservative Catholics – and they rail against immigrants while supporting a church that keeps poor people poor. These Republicans also support the drug war. And they oppose making college education available to children who were brought here from other countries at a young age by parents who were and are undocumented.
And then there is our school district, the SAUSD. It is of course a hot mess. The SAUSD Trustees are impossible to contact and don’t really care, for the most part, about the people in this city. The SAUSD administrators make a lot of money but the results are highly questionable. We continue to lead this County in low graduation rates and high dropout rates. But I can’t blame the teachers. They are doing the best they can under trying circumstances. And our city has one major library and one branch – both of which are closed on Sundays, so the kids have nowhere to go to do homework before they go back to school on Monday.
So you wonder why there is so much crime in this city and why three women would grow up to become brutal killers? I am of course referring to the “ladies” who kicked and stomped a young woman to death in Downtown Santa Ana a couple weeks ago. You don’t see women doing this anywhere else in Orange County. Just here in Santa Ana.
You can gentrify our Downtown till the cows come home but you will not change Santa Ana until you address the root causes of poverty in our city. As long as high school girls are getting pregnant and families are having kid after kid and dads are not living up to their responsibilities you will not change this city. And if you think things are bad now wait until you see what we will be paying for water and energy in a few years…we are already paying the highest property taxes in Orange County as our residents keep voting for school bond measures without thinking about how these are going to be paid back.
And what about jobs? The Democrats want to raise the minimum wage. But that will pretty much ensure that there will be no jobs for teenagers, in a city that really needs those jobs. Not to worry. The gangs will continue to need more drug runners…
“Why poverty and crime are so persistent in Santa Ana”……….. Hmmmmmmm
Do you want to hear the truth or lie?……. Editor?
In the politically correct iLeft society you will hear only the lie and mixing a syndrome with a symptom.
So why are you asking?
If it would make any difference I would answer you.
OMG! How dare you try to blame the church for women getting knocked up. These women know what causes them to get pregnant. Perhaps their parents should teach them to keep their legs closed and for the boys to respect women!!!!! How dare you try to say our city is to blame because we don’t want to pay for kids who do crappy in school to go to college while we foot the bill.
If they want to go to college, let them work hard to get good grades and get a scholarship. Or work while they go to school. That’s what my nephew did. He worked hard and went to school and got his degree. Nothing was handed to him!
I’m so sick of people trying to blame others for people having a million kids and then they cry that they are poor and everyone should be taking care of them.
It’s not the schools fault, it’s not the churches fault, it’s not the neighbors fault…it is their fault!
First of all, our city is poor because so many people that live here shouldn’t even be here. They are law breakers and no right to get anything free from us who work and pay taxes our whole lives.
If these kids suffer it is because their parents are choosing to make them suffer. That is sad.
Yes, everyone of them who are here and not legal are law breakers. They broke the law by coming here and so why should we expect them to be anything but law breakers and thugs? They don’t respect the law at all.
So they will be drug dealers and gang bangers and steal from people because that is how their parents are raising them to be.
Does my heart break for the kids? Sure does. But it’s not my fault and it’s not up to me to just hand them stuff. The more they are given things by not working for it the more they learn and feel that is what they deserve and they blame everyone for their hard life.
Take responsibility for yourself and quit looking for others to fix your life.
The Catholic Church advocates against birth control. So they own the results. That so many of their priests have also molested kids is salt in the wound.
So you believe all the poor families with tons of children are Catholic only??? LOL Also, if they are such good Catholics that they do what the church tells them too then they wouldn’t be having sex before marriage any way. Hmmm. Also, if we paid for every family to live a nice comfortable life then our country would be bankrupt super fast. Or do you have a better way to provide for these people??? Perhaps everyone should quit work, have a ton of kids and cry the blues that everyone else should support you and take care of you because you are poor. LOL This is the most foolish report I’ve ever read. Oh and before you jump into another lie, NO I am not a Catholic.
You’re not Catholic and I doubt you live in Santa Ana. So why is any of this your concern?
There you go again! How many times must I prove you wrong? I DO live in Santa Ana. If I didn’t then why would I read this post or care what you think? I resent you thinking you know me or my belief just because they are not as yours and I’ve proven you wrong. So so sad. And you call yourself a reporter? You really should just focus on ways to help the city rather then point the finger. BTW what have YOU done to help out your city? Before you ask, YES I have helped. I have volunteered with the Santa Ana Historical Society, helped with the elderly in providing them with meals, tutored children and also by getting involved in my own homeowners assoc. I also have donated money, food and clothes to help out the homeless
So I DO know what I’m talking about.
BTW, if you would ever like to get together to talk about ways the community could help by educating the people on how they can help themselves I would be happy to get together with you and try to figure out a way we could do that. But trying to put the blame on someone else is not going to help anything out.
Amen! Own your problems! Live here legally! Any time you find a population of illegal immigrants, you will always find proverty and crime. The Hispanic city council does NOTHING to help. Lots of talk. They intentionally keep the poor just that, poor. They have control if they can keep that bs going. I don’t understand a culture that likes to keep their people ‘down.’ Education is the key to advance in the world and the majority of the population in the city do not value education like the the rest of us do. The schools in Santa Ana suck! That is a huge reason why families do not move to SA. You continue to hate on my demographic that enjoys the Downtown, has the money to spend downtown, live in north Santa Ana neighborhoods or the lofts around the city, look forward to the continuing changes downtown and don’t feel like, “oh my god, shut it all down, shut it down now! A young woman was murdered! Everyone..we must stop and revert back to the poor, drug and crime infested, buildings falling apart, City that we used to be! Give me my owed government hand out so I can keep having babies, give me my free housing, yes we are illegal, speak only Spanish and don’t take care of your house do it looks like complete crap and embrace the 3rd world country look once again. Gangs! Embrace them too!” Sorry, yuck! Own your problems! Sorry we bettered ourselves with education and own successful restaurants and retail and even property. We won’t stop.
I forgot it’s not the mayors fault….
No it’s not the mayors fault. No one is at fault for another persons life. It’s up to each person to accept responsibility for their own life.
Wow
2513 edinger there’s are bar with no security owner pays no taxes uses a alcohol license with a dead persons name it and gets away with it has meth users hang out on the roof top looking for police spying on them…seems like the city like garbage like this…
Why is marijuana so legal in Ansheim where I live in HUD housing. Even the manager uses it as does many tenants.??