Costa Mesa Council’s Decision to Evict SOS
Shame on the Costa Mesa City Council (except Vice Mayor Mary Hornbuckle) for voting to evict Share Our Selves (SOS) in six months (July 19). For 19 years this all-volunteer, private, nonprofit agency has been a shining example of what President Bush calls “a thousand points of light.”
SOS provides food, clothes, free medical and dental care and emergency financial aid to 6,000 poor families a month. And SOS spends less than 3% of its funds on administrative overhead. Not many groups, public or private, can claim such success.
Now a small vocal band of neighbors has pressured the city into canceling SOS’s lease at the Rea Community Center--its home since 1981. The tenor of the neighbors’ comments at Monday’s hearing was telling: “I don’t want to see poor people lining up for food. It’s depressing.”
Mayor Peter F. Buffa’s explanation for allowing the SOS medical and dental clinic an extra year before eviction was equally offensive. He said the people who come for medical care are of a different (presumably better) “set” than those who come for food. Apparently, for those of discriminating tastes (like the good mayor), a poor person who is ill is less objectionable than one who is hungry.
We are now seeing the true trickle-down effect of Reaganomics: selfishness and loss of compassion in our neighborhoods.
KATHLEEN ESFAHANI
BAHRAM ESFAHANI
San Clemente
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