SOS Expects No Honeymoon in New Home : Charity: Neighbors are already making noises about its ‘undesirable’ clientele. Officials see the need for some educating.

As the poverty agency Share Our Selves prepares to reopen after being driven last summer from its home in a city community center, leaders of other Orange County charities say the episode taught them a tough lesson in politics.

Many hope that SOS’s re-emergence this week--from offices in a commercial center some distance from its former west side neighborhood--will foster a greater understanding of the needs of Orange County charities and the importance of actively pressing those needs.

“Everyone has learned a lesson from SOS,” agreed Msgr. Jaime Soto, Catholic vicar for Orange County’s Latino community. “What it taught me is that building and sustaining partnerships is an ongoing job and needs to be a big part of any voluntary agency if they want to pursue their mission in Orange County.

“We can’t fall back into the illusion that everyone approves of the good work we’re doing.”

At its closing nearly six months ago, SOS became a symbol of the growing discord between the county’s swelling ranks of homeless and needy and those longtime residents who felt threatened by Orange County’s quickening pace of urbanization and changing demographics.

As its scheduled Thursday reopening nears, the signals are decidely mixed: An SOS board member narrowly lost election to the Costa Mesa City Council. But as it is, the new council majority is likely to lend a much more sympathetic ear to the charity.

Yet neighbors around SOS’s new home are already making noises about its “undesirable” clientele of tattered homeless, impoverished immigrants and others who live hand-to-mouth.

“I think support for SOS is going to come to the forefront, that people will really rally round,” said Merritt L. Johnson, president of United Way of Orange County.

His agency offered both monetary and moral support last summer when SOS was forced by the City Council to vacate its home at the city-managed Rea Community Center. The city’s decision followed years of complaints from residents that the poverty agency had outgrown its residential neighborhood. SOS ultimately bought a new home in a commercial area several blocks from the center.

But its ouster sparked an outcry among religious and charitable leaders that eventually coalesced into a more united community of providers.

“Any crisis tends to bring certain issues to the fore,” Johnson said. “What SOS showed is that for a community as affluent and as strong as this one, we need to be reminded of the needs out there.”

SOS founder and director Jean Forbath said she was encouraged by the recent council race, which pitted two challengers--both of whom are SOS supporters--against two incumbents, one of them Councilman Orville Amburgey. A persistent SOS critic, Amburgey alleged that the charity increased crime, litter and panhandling in the Rea center neighborhood, and he led the move to oust it.

Amburgey ultimately ran fourth out of five candidates, a decisive defeat that surprised many.

“The results showed that a majority of residents do not share those feelings,” Forbath said.

SOS directors are attempting to counter negative reactions spurred by their move to their new location in the 1500 block of Superior Avenue with a more active outreach and information appeal. The message being, “We want to be good neighbors.”

Yet Forbath also said she believes that the “NIMBY” phenomenon--Not in My Back Yard--is not about to die.

“I don’t think that (Amburgey) caused those things to be there; people do have those negative feelings,” she said.

Others agreed that the atmosphere in Orange County is not necessarily kinder and gentler for charities than it was six months ago, despite results of the Costa Mesa election.

“I think the sentiments that drive NIMBY responses . . . will probably be around for a while,” Msgr. Soto said.

And charity providers concede that it is much easier for people to support, for example, an agency that provides services for the homeless if that agency is not attracting those very same homeless to the neighborhood.

“I firmly believe that people philosophically are opposed to those (negative) positions,” said Sister Barbara Clem, director of the homeless family project for Catholic Charities. “But when it comes to their own neighborhood, fear prevails. A lot of it comes down to judging people: ‘If they are poor or homeless, it must be their fault.’ That is why children’s charities have a much easier time.”

However, many residents who opposed SOS at the Rea center say there has been little attempt to understand their position, and they complain about being unfairly characterized as racists or bashers of the poor.

“People in other areas would never accept what has gone on in the west side,” resident Janice Davidson told the Costa Mesa council recently. “Everything just gets dumped on us.”

And business owners around SOS’s new home have formed a committee and are vowing to monitor the going and comings of SOS’s clientele in search of any infraction.

What especially worries providers is that SOS’s woes come at a time when the need for services has reached alarming proportions.

Nearly every facet of social services--be it county welfare caseloads, food assistance or demand for homeless shelters--is at a peak, county officials say.

Many worry that a declining economy may mean even less tolerance and fewer donations. Recently released results of the 1990 Orange County Annual Survey for example show that the median charitable donations dropped from $285 in 1989 to $223 this year.

Still, many longtime providers say tough times often bring out the best in people.

Preliminary returns from this year’s United Way campaign are running about $1 million ahead of last year, Johnson said. And early numbers from the recently initiated donor choice program show homelessness leading the list.

A key to improving the response of residents is providing a better understanding of the severity of needs in Orange County.

“I come from New York, and one big problem out here is that is it is very hard to see the need if you don’t go looking for it,” Sister Barbara said. “Once people know of a need and feel they can do something about it, they will.”

Another key, providers say, is in eliciting a strong response from community and political leaders. It is in that area that many see hope from the Costa Mesa experience.

“I was heartened by the initial remarks made by those who won the election who seemed to indicate this was a turn,” Soto said. “I took it as a sign that the council will begin to be more responsive to a broader constituency rather than allowing itself to be dictated to by narrow interests.”

Added Forbath: “I think our political leaders will see that changing demographics are a fact and will bring some positive solutions to the problems that do arise.”