A 9:00 p.m. call the night before a meeting will rarely have good news for program manager CW Gruenig. However, when our March 5 featured speaker called and was unavailable, Mike Pouraryan, Community Affairs and Culture Liaison for Our Father’s Table, stepped up to deliver a fine program.
Mike explained that Our Father’s Table asserts a new model for assisting the homeless to become the non-homeless. Volunteers, well-versed in resources available from and within Orange County, engage with the homeless one-on-one, gain their trust, aid them through the bureaucratic labyrinth, and are available all hours of the day and night. They work to bring the homeless back to feeling human again.
Our Father’s Table spends just a small fraction compared to the $300 million Orange County spends annually for homeless programs, proving that just throwing money at a problem never provides a solution. OFT requires client accountability—their client must want to get up again.
Mental and drug issues have to be self-recognized and addressed with tough love. OFT helps the individual create a plan and finds the right agencies to provide assistance.
Case navigators offer a positive force to make the individual whole again, frequently guiding by hand through the transportation system and government maze.
Mike said the homeless often need a friend to help them figure out the system, and Our Father’s Table provides a link between the homeless and the agencies that are available and should be helping. Their 24/7 help line is (949) 324-0908.
At our March 19 meeting, NSMC member and South Coast Water District President Bill Green introduced Water District engineers Joe Sinacori and Dave Neil for an update on the engineering marvels occurring below our environs to better manage our precious water. How often do we hear the magic words “Under budget and ahead of schedule” from representatives of our government? Sinacori and Neil explained how implementation of four steps for success—design, planning, management, and good contractors achieved that desirable result on a current SCWD project.
Their enlightening presentation took us through the SCWD Tunnel Stabilization and Sewer Pipeline Project running in a tunnel 6 to 11 feet high up to 60 feet below the route from Monarch Beach to Aliso Creek. The current $100 million project, about fifty percent complete and way under budget, replaces a much smaller tunnel and pipeline created in the mid-1950s. The project covers the existing pipeline in foam topped by concrete and then cuts a new larger tunnel and replacement pipe above the existing pipe.
The 2.5-mile undertaking with one access point requires the use of a small electric powered underground railroad to support two rock drilling tunnel cutters. Near Fourth Avenue and Aliso Creek, an electric crane provides access to the project and tunnel structure, as well as for workers, equipment, materials, infrastructure and rock waste removal.
During the project the existing pipe, systems and connections remain operating in place. There have been no incidents, injuries or fatalities.
—Robert Saint-Aubin
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