Costa Mesa’s SOS Charity Can’t Get Help, Will Close

Share Our Selves, a Costa Mesa charity that has dispensed food, clothing and financial aid to county residents for nearly 20 years, will close its doors in two weeks, forcing thousands of needy people to seek assistance elsewhere, officials said.

The death knell for the nonprofit group was sounded after the City Council early Wednesday rejected as too costly a plan to help move the agency from its current home at a city-managed community center in a residential neighborhood to a new location.

“We’re all sick. We’re very sad,” said Marla Bird, an SOS volunteer for five years. “They (the clients) have dropped through the cracks. They have no address, so they can’t get welfare. They can’t get into an apartment without the first and last month’s rent. It’s a nightmare for them. Welcome to gorgeous Orange County--home of the heartless.”

Shortly before 2:30 a.m., the council voted 4 to 1 against using city money to finance a move from the Rea Community Center to an industrial warehouse at 1550 Superior Ave. The vote followed three hours of public testimony, much of it from residents and business owners opposed to relocating the agency to the Superior Avenue facility.

“It would have left us committed for a big chunk of change,” said Councilwoman Sandra L. Genis, who opposed spending an estimated $100,000 of city funds to help the agency relocate. “I can’t see making this big a financial commitment without examining some other options.”

The council’s action ended six months of often testy negotiations in which the charity had been buffeted with complaints from residents about its “undesirable” clientele, who were accused of urinating and defecating in public, loitering and generally disrupting the neighborhood.

Jean Forbath, executive director and founder of SOS, voiced resignation at the decision, saying, “We will continue to serve our clients until we no longer can.” She would not say whether SOS would voluntarily leave the Rea center Jan. 15 or make the city forcibly evict the group.

The council voted in July to cancel the SOS lease at the Rea center, giving the group six months to find a new location. Officials at the all-volunteer agency maintain that they do not have the money to relocate on their own and say that they will now have to end the bulk of their assistance programs.

Medical and dental programs operated by SOS will be allowed to remain at the Rea center until 1991 and will not be affected by the decision.

The demise of SOS will be felt by thousands of homeless and needy residents, social welfare officials said Wednesday.

“They are one of the largest volunteer organizations in the county and serve a significant number of people,” said Robert Griffiths, chief deputy director of the county Social Services Agency. “There will be people who will remain homeless who could have been housed, those who will go hungry who otherwise could have been fed and others who won’t get help with clothing and other things that can make life marginally better.”

Said Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission: “If SOS is really shut down by the shortsighted action of Costa Mesa officials, it will be a major tragedy for poor people and all people in Orange County.”

Volunteers at the center as well as those receiving help there also expressed anger and disappointment Wednesday.

“They tell me some of the neighbors complained,” said Kay Nakamura, a 60 year-old Santa Ana resident who said she has received food and clothing from the agency for two years. “I don’t blame them. Some of the people who (go to SOS) are kind of rough. I’m just glad they were able to help us for so many years.”

City officials insist that their decision was not intended to close SOS but was based largely on financial considerations.

The city estimated that it would cost at least $50,000 to make necessary structural improvements to the Superior Avenue warehouse before SOS could move in. Under the proposed plan rejected by the council, the city would have also subleased the 5,744-square-foot building to SOS for five years.

Initially, the city would have paid about three-fourths of the lease fee with SOS’s portion of the payment gradually increasing over the course of the five-year agreement until it assumed the full cost. Officials estimate the city’s total cost at more than $100,000.

“With that kind of money we should be buying something, not renting,” Mayor Peter F. Buffa said.

City Manager Allen L. Roeder told the council there was no money available to pay for the plan and that the city would have to defer already budgeted programs or draw upon reserves.

The council’s debate over SOS’s future location renewed controversy over a provision of the proposed agreement that ostensibly had nothing to do with when or where the group moves: whether to exempt the agency from the city’s policy on illegal aliens.

In an unprecedented action that provoked alarm and protest among nonprofit groups, the council in August voted 3 to 2 to withhold city funds from any group--except medical clinics--that serves illegal aliens.

A month later--after federal officials questioned the legality of the move--the council backed away somewhat from its position, deciding that city-funded agencies would have the option of screening their clients for citizenship.

SOS has been steadfast in its objection to the policy. Under the plan considered Tuesday, the city would have agreed not to force SOS to screen its clients for proof of citizenship.

Councilmen Orville Amburgey, who sponsored the anti-alien measure, and Ed Glasgow argued that the proposed agreement would exempt SOS from the policy even if the council decides to make it mandatory again.

“It is not acceptable to commit the city to these restrictions,” said Amburgey.

Neither would SOS budge on the policy. “The deal was broken on our insistence that we have freedom to serve anyone we wish. Other things were negotiable, but that was not,” Forbath said.

Even if the council had supported the move, Forbath acknowledged that the agency would have faced stiff opposition from business owners and residents in the largely industrial area around the warehouse proposed as the group’s new home.

“What would happen to me?” said Evelyn Butler, a 68-year-old resident of the Anchor Trailer Port, a mobile home park which abuts the Superior Avenue site.

‘I worked for 35 years for that little trailer, and it really upsets me that they would consider bringing in something like (SOS),” she said after the council meeting. “There are a lot of elderly women who are already scared living alone.”

At the SOS offices Wednesday morning, lines had formed at the clothing distribution section where men, women and children waited for a warm blanket or sweater.

Lien Jansema, coordinator of the clothing distribution section for the last eight years, said about 200 people a day come in for free clothing. Everyone is now getting more than the usual five to 10 pieces of clothing because the center must be emptied by Jan. 15.

“I think the City Council wants not only us out, but everybody else out (all the other charities that use the Rea Community Center). I think they’ll tear this down and have a big developer come in and build condos or something,” Jansema said.

“The attitude from the people is terrible these days. It’s only me, me, me. They don’t care about anybody else,” she said. “They care for the homeless, and they care for poor people, but they don’t want them in their back yard.”

Social welfare officials also said the action by Costa Mesa officials reflects a troubling trend.

“It appears there is a growing tendency on the part of many communities that, even when they acknowledge the need and worth of a program, maintain their community is not the right place for it,” Griffiths said. “The catch is, there is never a right place.”

Times staff writer Tony Marcano contributed to this report.

SAVE OUR SELVES

Share Our Selves, a Costa Mesa-based charity, will end most of its operations on Jan. 15.

Founded: 1971, in response to a plea by the nation’s Catholic bishops to end poverty and oppression through “creative and positive action.”

Services: emergency food, clothing, shelter, financial assistance, medical and dental care.

Clients: about 300 needy families are fed daily; another 85 families receive financial assistance daily.

Budget: about $600,000 last year, mostly from private donations. The agency also receives city and federal funds.

Current home: Rea Community Center, 661 Hamilton St. The group pays $610 a month in rent to the city to sublet space in the facility.

Staff: made up almost entirely of volunteers.

Source: Share Our Selves