COSTA MESA : Residents Muster SOS ‘Safeguards’

Still two months from moving to its new home, the beleaguered Share Our Selves already faces opposition from new neighbors who have formed an association to monitor the charity.

Some businesses also have installed fences, deployed guard dogs or improved lighting systems in anticipation of the hundreds of clients SOS serves in a day.

“There’s never been fences before,” said Scott Sarkisian, owner of Normandy Newport on Superior Avenue. He plans to install $6,000 worth of chain-link fencing around the back of his business and has already installed metal grates to secure the front door and window.

“There are going to be a lot of people walking the street here, and it’s already a busy area,” he said. “It’s going to be ugly.”

Newport Mesa Concerned Citizens, a group of residents and business owners with about 400 members, formed because of SOS’s scheduled move to their neighborhood. The association plans to hire a private investigator to watch over activities outside the new SOS headquarters at 1550 Superior Ave., according to Rod Cunha, the group’s president.

The association also will set up a hot line to receive and log complaints about the charity, which provided food, clothing and financial aid to 5,000 families a month before it closed in June.

SOS was forced out of its home at the city-managed Rea Community Center, 661 Hamilton St., after neighbors complained to the council that its clients were disrupting the area. The city agreed to give SOS a conditional-use permit to set up shop at the new area.

Renovations are now being made on the building, 15,000 square feet of which will be converted into counseling rooms, bathrooms, storage for clothing and food and office space. Plans also call for a large waiting room and children’s play area to keep the clients from waiting for services outside in the parking lot, said Jean Forbath, SOS founder and executive director.

“We’re just hoping that they’ll give us a chance and not believe what has been said about us in the past,” Forbath said about her new neighbors.

Most of the property owners are worried about losing customers or having property damaged or stolen, Cunha said.

“We’re dealing with very old, very established family-owned businesses here, and the thought that it could be hurt by this is scary,” he said. “I won’t have this jeopardize my family’s well-being.”

The association has hired an attorney and may challenge the city in court or try to annex part of the area to Newport Beach, Cunha said.

For now, Forbath and others involved with SOS are concentrating on fund raising and the renovations. At the community center, SOS paid $610 a month for the space it occupied. With the new place, which is five times larger, the mortgage payment will be $7,439, Forbath said.

Although the extra space will allow the charity to serve more people, Forbath said the move has “been too painful, and too many people have been dislocated.

“It could work out well, but we have a real challenge ahead of us.”