Video Interview: William O'Connell of Colette's Children's Home
conducted by Jim Washburn
Over the past ten years, Colette's Children's Home has helped nearly a thousand homeless Orange County women and children toward better lives by providing shelter, assistance and direction. The chronically homeless; the working poor lacking a first-and-last; the untended mentally ill; the addicted; those escaping domestic abuse; victims of human trafficking: all have been given a better chance in the world via CCH's mix of compassion and intensive case-working.
That's laudable, remarkable. It's also nowhere near enough, says Colette's executive director William O'Connell, who says there are more homeless than cities want to count, and far more than his small non-profit can take on with their present resources. (Check them out here, and please consider lending a hand.)
CCH was founded by three people, Pamela Hope, Kevin Craig and O'Connell, who were well-versed in the needs of the homeless, each having worked with the Catholic Worker Movement's Isaiah House in Santa Ana (more about Isaiah House here). Today CCH has nine full-time staff, two part-time and several volunteers working out of four small offices in a Beach Blvd. business strip. They own housing units in Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Fountain Valley and Placentia, able to provide shelter for 130 women and children.
O'Connell—called Billy by all who work with him—is a formidable advocate for his cause, as one might expect given his previous gigs as a union trustee for concrete and cement workers in New York City and as a Los Angeles Sheriff. Born in New York, he was raised in Ireland, which you'll surely hear in our recent video interview with him.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
At least an order of magnitude more news coverage.