The Real Reasons for Santa Ana’s Plight

Re “In Housing Density, It’s Too Close for Comfort,” Sept. 15:

If it was staff writer Jennifer Mena’s intent to elicit the reader’s sympathy, she probably relied on a largely misled Times readership to swallow yet another helping of perceived and implied, though not necessarily expressed, inequities of a mean-spirited, prejudicial and oppressive phantom system bent on trampling on the lives of a downtrodden, underserved minority.

Without fail, and in classic L.A. Times fashion, the reader’s mind is numbed and manipulated in paragraph after paragraph with an ever-louder heart-rending staccato drumbeat and pictorial fusillade of pathos, in the process of which journalistic integrity is sacrificed in favor of heavy doses of sycophancy.

The real reasons the inappropriately named “All American City” of Santa Ana suffers not just from “overcrowding” but from a hardly surprising case of overall malaise are conveniently ignored. While your paper’s pro-illegal immigration stance is well-known, its contributing writers cavalierly circumnavigate the cause and effect of these conditions.

Rising birthrates, inadequate housing, crowded living conditions, rising criminality, subpar-performing schools and overburdened medical facilities are closely intertwined. They are but a few examples that have a negative impact on the general stability of any community.

Dan Fenske

Fountain Valley