Ahead of the November general election, the Southern California News Group compiled a list of questions to pose to the candidates who wish to represent you. You can find the full questionnaire below.

Name: Sandra De Anda

Age: 32

Current job title: Director of Policy and Legal Strategy, Orange County Rapid Response Network

Incumbent: No

Other political positions held: N/A

City where you reside: Santa Ana

Campaign website or social media: sandraforsantaana.com

How can the city best meet the demand and mandates for more housing, including at lower price points, while also preserving local control and the quality of life for existing neighborhoods and residents? (Please limit your answer to 200 words or less.)

Meeting our housing goals requires treating housing as a human right, not a commodity left to the market alone. I support building affordable, publicly funded housing at scale, and not relying on developers to voluntarily include a handful of affordable units in exchange for density bonuses. Preserving quality of life for existing neighborhoods doesn’t mean resisting housing, it means making sure new housing is affordable, well-planned, and paired with the infrastructure and services a growing population needs.

Local control should mean residents have real, meaningful power in shaping what gets built and where. I support a participatory planning process where residents, especially those in neighborhoods that have historically been left out of these conversations, help set the priorities for new development.

State mandates exist because cities have failed to build enough affordable housing for decades. Santa Ana can meet those obligations responsibly by prioritizing public and social housing, requiring real affordability from private development, and centering the people who will actually live in this housing.

How should the city balance rising costs, paying off debts, such as pension liabilities, and building reserves, all while meeting residents’ needs? Should a solution involve finding new revenue, economic development, trimming the budget, or something else entirely? (Please limit your answer to 200 words or less.)

Budgets are moral documents, and how we answer this question reveals who this city values. I don’t believe the answer is trimming services working families depend on to build reserves or pay down debt faster than necessary. I support raising new revenue by ensuring corporations, developers, and large property owners doing business in Santa Ana pay their fair share. Balancing the budget on the backs of working-class residents should never be on the table.

Workers who dedicated their careers to serving this city deserve to see those obligations honored and reap the benefit of their well-earned pension. Honest budgeting means planning for these costs responsibly over time, not passing the burden onto future councils or gambling with workers’ retirement security.

Reserves matter, but they should never come at the expense of investment today. I support a people’s budget process where residents have a meaningful voice in these tradeoffs, transparent about what’s being prioritized and why. Santa Ana can build fiscal stability and invest in working families at the same time, if we’re honest about asking those most able to contribute to do so.

The public expects transparency from public leaders in spending and governance. How can this be achieved? How can the city do better in this area? (Please limit your answer to 200 words or less.)

Transparency has to mean more than public information being available somewhere. It means residents having a real, meaningful voice before major decisions are made. I support a genuine people’s budget process, where the City engages residents directly, evaluates real need, considers alternatives, and demonstrates it’s getting the best value for public dollars before approving significant expenditures.

A high price tag should never be accepted simply because it’s presented as the only option. The City can do better by requiring real public engagement at every major spending decision, publishing clear, accessible reporting on where money goes and why, and creating ongoing structures for co-governance, residents, community organizations, and local leaders working together to shape policy.

Government works best when it works with the people it serves. Real transparency and real accountability mean Santa Ana residents can see how their voice and their tax dollars shape the decisions being made in this city.

In your opinion, what is the biggest need your city faces, and how would you address it? (Please limit your answer to 200 words or less.)

Santa Ana’s biggest need is housing. Santa Ana has a housing crisis that touches everything else: homelessness, displacement, and families one paycheck away from eviction. This is a policy failure, and it demands a policy solution that protects our residents and allows working people to stand on their feet.

I would address this by fighting for permanent, publicly funded supportive housing paired with mental health care, addiction treatment, and case management, and by acting before people lose their homes in the first place through emergency rental assistance, just-cause eviction protections, and legal defense for tenants. We have to stop criminalizing homelessness. Citations and sweeps don’t solve this crisis, they push people deeper into it and make it harder to connect them with real housing and services.

Santa Ana cannot solve this alone. I will fight for the City to partner with the County and State to secure real funding and build housing, with shared accountability at every level. Housing is a human right, and this city’s biggest need is the sustained public investment required to make that right real for every resident.

Why would you make a good leader, and how would you represent the diverse communities of your city? (Please limit your answer to 200 words or less.)

I believe government works best when it works with the people it serves. I’ve done crisis response work myself, and I know that people in distress don’t just need someone to show up, they need someone who listens, de-escalates, and connects them with real, concrete resources. That same philosophy shapes how I approach governing: co-governance, where residents, community organizations, and local leaders help identify problems and build solutions together.

Representing Santa Ana’s diverse communities means centering the people who are too often left out of these processes: working-class families, tenants, and neighborhoods that have historically had the least power to shape decisions affecting their own lives. I don’t believe in a single price tag or a single solution presented as the only option. I believe in real engagement, real alternatives, and real accountability to the community I represent.

Budgets, policies, and priorities should reflect a simple question: who is worth investing in?

My answer will always be working people, and every community that makes up this city.