VIDEO – MOVING ON UP –
Mar. 31, 2026 – A woman who was homeless for years is sharing her story of survival after she was able to avoid jail time and seek treatment instead. Those involved with the program knew that Tiffany Emerson would be a good candidate.
“Survival is just survival I guess, you know? You just do what you have to do,” she said. For the past ten years, Emerson called the streets and tunnels of Anaheim home. She ended up on the streets after a situation at home required her to leave. “Some of the hardest things that I think I had to deal with was probably just being alone, you know? By myself as a female,” Emerson said.
Emerson turned to drugs and it was not uncommon for her to run into Anaheim police, namely Officer Ryan Lee with the department’s Homeless Assessment Liaison Officer team (HALO).
“Tiffany is a really sweet person,” Officer Lee said. “We contact so many people who have these unfortunately similar issues where they have drug addiction, mental health or a combination of the two. The more time you spend with them, the easier it is to look past that and see who they are as a person and how they ended up in this position.”
