CATCHING UP WITH... Share Our Selves

Amy R. Spurgeon

COSTA MESA -- Five years after the county went bankrupt, one local

organization and its visitors are still feeling some effects of the loss.

“The county chose to cut the programs for those least empowered -- the

poor people,” said Karen Harrington, director of development for Costa

Mesa’s Share Our Selves, a free medical, dental, food and clothing

center. “SOS is their voice.”

After the bankruptcy, many of the first people to be let go were county

social services personnel. Waiting room attendance at clinics around the

county skyrocketed from 60 to 150 people, Share Our Selves officials

said.

It was a time of frustration for many county social service agencies,

including Share Our Selves.

The privately funded, nonprofit organization rallied with other

health-care advocates in an attempt to get more than 130 positions

reinstated.

The county also cut off certain medical supplies to the agency, including

antibiotics. Share Our Selves paid for the items in order to continue

providing general care to the public. The county still has not reinstated

Share Our Selves for the supplies.

The agency started distributing food and financial aid in 1970 to

indigent people in the area. The free medical and dental clinics began in

1984 and 1987, respectively.

Mary Moyer, clinic nurse manager, said medical services for the poor have

become increasingly difficult to obtain since the bankruptcy. Since Share

Our Selves is a “last resort” clinic, many county residents who do not

qualify for other state or county medical programs arrive on the center’s

doorstep.

The clinic helps more than 6,000 people, each of whom visit the clinic

twice a year.

“I have no insurance, so I come here,” said Althea Johnson, 40, of Costa

Mesa. The clip for her dentures broke and she came to Share Our Selves

for dental services on Tuesday.

Juan Baltista of Costa Mesa, 36, got up at 5 a.m. Tuesday to get in line

at SOS for free dental care. On the first Tuesday of the month, people

from all over Orange County travel to SOS to sign up for dental service.

The clinic takes on 50 new patients per month.

Possibly the biggest current setback for SOS is the fight over tobacco

settlement funds designated to the county. Initially, the Board of

Supervisors planned to spend the settlement money on the county’s debt

and the building of jails. But protests from the health-care community

have prompted closed-door sessions with county supervisors.

The allocation of the $912 million the county is to receiveover the next

25 years is still being determined.

“I know if they didn’t have such high debt, the tobacco settlement money

would have been a great boon to health care,” said Moyer. “For all of the

coalition of community clinics, we are hoping the funds from the tobacco

settlement come through.”

Despite voting to spend the bulk of the tobacco windfall on debt payments

and jail beds, Supervisor James W. Silva said negotiations over the funds

are still taking place throughout the county. He said he believes

community clinics should be singled out and supported because they are

most often the community’s first lines of defense in health care.

“The county will try to help out in any way that we can,” Silva said.

The tobacco settlement funds are crucial to the clinics because they may

be facing additional cutbacks next year as a result of changes to the

state-mandated Medical Services for Indigents program, Moyer said. Those

changes could mean a loss of $130,000 per year for Share Our Selves,

Moyer added.

“SOS serves as a safety net for people out there,” said Moyer. “The more

strands it has in it, the less likely somebody is able to fall on the

ground. But things like funding get in the way.”