ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Valuable Lesson for SOS

As Jean Forbath, the founder and executive director of the beleaguered Share Our Selves (SOS) charity, says: “It seems that anywhere we go there will be problems.” Indeed, it is unlikely that SOS’s agreement to purchase a site on Superior Street in a south Costa Mesa industrial area will be trouble-free. A previous plan, supported by the City Council, for SOS to lease the site temporarily had raised some concerns by businesses in the area and residents of a nearby mobile home park. The council eventually decided against the plan for financial reasons.

SOS officials were disappointed that their charity, one of Orange County’s biggest, could not stay at its present site at Rea Community Center on Hamilton Street. But an organized effort in that neighborhood forced the city not to renew the lease. While a blow to SOS, the controversy turned out to be a blessing in disguise: As a result of publicity over the ouster, there was a surge of contributions amounting to more than $300,000. That made it possible for SOS to purchase its own building for $1.4 million and secure its future.

Forbath said SOS learned a valuable lesson at Rea Community Center. This time, she said, SOS will take an assertive role in dealing with the Superior Street neighborhood in which it will operate, and to which thousands of needy people will come for food, clothing and financial assistance. “We need to explain who we are and what we are doing before they hear bad things about our people,” Forbath said. That’s the right approach. It is hoped that it will head off trouble for SOS before it happens.