At some point each day, I try to peruse the various blogs and news sites that I support on this page. I admit most of the writers have either better contacts or more time to waste perusing blogs than I do for story ideas. Art Pedroza, who publishes the pseudo-news-blog “New Santa Ana” is one of the latter.

On Wednesday, the Tustin Police Department published an entry to their Facebook account regarding a recent mitigation action concerning a homeless encampment. The officer who responded to the call found personal belongings and and obvious signs of occupation but not warm bodies to speak with. They left a notice directing the occupant to clear the area. Homeless Liaison Officer DeLeon went by the next day and found nearly everything gone. City personnel then cleared the remaining items from the area. Good Job and no one got hurt (maybe a little inconvenienced but not hurt.

So, imagine my surprise when I am slogging through the various blogs and I read on New Santa Ana about the incident. I mean, it wasn’t anywhere near Santa Ana. It must have been a slow news day in his city, with new, as yet uncorrupted city councilmembers and all. Art did a good job of copying the TPD Facebook entry nearly word-for-word but I suppose there are different rules for professional bloggers. It was the last paragraph that really bothered me.

Pedroza writes: “Hurray for Tustin but where did the homeless people in question go? Tustin does provide a homeless shelter. But in the example above the homeless people in question just left. Where did they go?“

Well, gee Art, how would DeLeon know? There was no one there to speak with and, obviously, police officers don’t have time to hang around on an admittedly low level service call. More important than that, as Pedroza pointed out, Tustin has a homeless shelter. In fact Tustin has several, including the Orange County Rescue Mission which serves the entire county and has been in service since 1963. It has been on the old Marine base for about 14 years now and has been joined by multiple other organizations that provide housing to homeless veterans and others in need.

Tustin has been a leader in working to get the homeless off the streets of our city without burdening other cities like Santa Ana, who has been fighting tooth and nail against a homeless shelter, and Irvine who has some pretty interesting ways of dealing with their homeless population. Tustin’s officers were also some of the first in Orange County to receive training in homeless and mental health issues among the homeless. That training pays off for them every day.

So, Art, before you go bashing a neighboring city, maybe you should take the time to do a little actual research instead of just plagiarizing Facebook pages.