Costa Mesa Gets a Chance

The opportunity to serve and really make a difference doesn’t come up too often, but such an opportunity will be before the Costa Mesa City Council Monday night when council members consider whether they will cancel the lease of Share Our Selves at Rea Community Center.

The council should allow the volunteer SOS group to stay where it is and continue to provide the basics of life--food, clothing and shelter--to people no one else is really helping to survive.

A group of west Costa Mesa residents in a classic display of the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) concept, is seeking to force SOS out of its location. The group does not like the people SOS attracts, as if SOS invented hunger and homelessness. Other residents support SOS remaining where it is, in an area zoned for institutional use and accessible to the people it serves, many of whom are Costa Mesa residents.

So the council must now decide. Ironically, the grass-roots volunteer group that has not relied on the city for financial support now must rely on the council for survival.

If the council drives SOS away, the problems the group serves will remain. And there are precious few organizations unselfishly helping the hungry and homeless.

Years from now, when council members look back and try to measure their contribution to the community, this vote will be one that will determine how worthy they were. Their service will be inglorious indeed if they turn their back on human needs and force SOS to close its doors.