Behind the Badge
Andrew Stocks, 34, acknowledges that his drug use and associated poor decisions are the reasons he’s been homeless for the past nine years.
Stocks’ girlfriend, Rebecca Price, 25, has been homeless off and on for the past five years.
Thanks to Fullerton Police Department Homeless Liaison Officer Cory Tong and the Coast to Coast Foundation, the couple now is off the streets.
Coast to Coast, a nonprofit that serves the homeless, and the FPD paid the bus fare to send the couple to Price’s hometown of Yuba City in Northern California.
“The homeless liaison program … it works,” said Stocks, before boarding the bus at Anaheim’s ARTIC Station last week.
The couple is now at the home of Price’s parents, where she has reunited with her child and other family members.
“I feel blessed to go home and see my kid,” Price said.
In his contacts with Stocks on the streets, Tong kept Stocks accountable, which is a big reason why the former transient decided to make a positive change, Stocks said.
“It helped because now I am off probation and developed sort of a friend in Officer Tong,” he said of Tong’s tough-love approach.
Since 2010, the partnership between the Fullerton Police Department and Coast to Coast Foundation is responsible for reuniting about 130 homeless citizens back with their loved ones, said Marie Avena, Coast to Coast founder.
