Poverty by Age and Sex 15, 7% of the population for whom poverty status is determined in Santa Ana, CA (51.3k out of 327k people) live below the poverty line, a number that is higher than the national average of 12.3%. California's 10 lowest-income ZIP codes ranged from farmworker communities in Tulare and Riverside counties to impoverished urban neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Fresno counties. The list also includes three Marine Corps stations (Twentynine Palms, Camp Pendleton and Miramar Air Station), perhaps because combat pay is not taxable. The city with the highest hardship index, which evaluates factors such as unemployment, low education and income levels and density, was Santa Ana, according to data from 2000.
Some highways cross Santa Ana and connect it to other areas of Orange County, the greater Los Angeles area, and beyond. Chiarini and recognize the artists who have helped make downtown Santa Ana a creative hub in Orange County. The Santa Ana Artist Village was created around the Grand Central Art Center at Cal State Fullerton to attract artists and young professionals to live-work lofts and new businesses. Santa Ana, approximately four-fifths Latino, has been characterized by The New York Times as the face of a new California, a state where Latinos have more influence in everyday electoral, cultural and demographic life than almost anywhere else in the country.
The Garden Grove Highway (State Route 2) runs near the northern border of Santa Ana and connects Long Beach to the west and the city of Orange to the east. Amtrak, the national passenger train system, serves Santa Ana several times Monday through Friday with less frequent service on weekends. Also on the east side of the city is the Santa Ana Zoo, which stands out for its collection of monkeys and species from South and Central America. Greyhound Lines is Santa Ana's largest bus service and serves the continental United States and Canada.
Santa Ana is the corporate headquarters of several companies, including Behr Paint, First American Corporation, Greenwood & Hall, Ingram Micro, SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union, STEC, TTM Technologies, Kern's and Wahoo Fish Taco. Santa Ana has several wall paintings and murals that represent local history, community events, and cultural diversity in Orange County. In his home state of Aguascalientes, Mexico, Tapia worked long hours as a bus driver, earning much less money than he did after 14 years in Santa Ana. The core of the city is the downtown area, which contains both stores and housing, as well as the Santa Ana Civic Center, which is a dense campus of administrative buildings for both the city and Orange County.
Santa Ana has highly competitive college and high school sports teams that play at the Santa Ana Stadium and the Santa Ana Unified School District Sports Complex Stadium. The Urban Institute, for example, estimates that up to a quarter of Santa Ana's population could be undocumented immigrants.
