By Sophie Appleyard,
Mount Green neighbourhood officer
As a neighbourhood officer, I work with residents across my patch in Surrey to make sure they’re happy in their homes. For the past two years, I’ve been working closely with a resident who has complex mental health needs and has more recently needed support with their hoarding disorder.
We’ve been working together to gradually try and declutter their home, a self-contained flat, making it a safer, more comfortable environment for them to live in. We began by identifying small areas, marking them up with masking tape, that they could declutter themselves over a two-week period. While this was working well and we had made good progress, due to other mental health challenges, the resident started to disengage from the process.
This proved even more challenging when we identified damp and mould in their home, which couldn’t be addressed until some of their belongings had been moved. Conscious of the impact this could have on the resident’s physical and mental health, it became necessary to temporarily move the resident so the mould could be treated and any remedial work to prevent the issue from reoccurring could be carried out.
As you can imagine, this was a big deal for the resident and our priority was on making sure we could carry out the work needed as efficiently as possible, while ensuring the resident felt supported.
Fortunately, the resident adapted better than expected to the move. So much so, they went through with me and their support worker what items were truly of sentimental value to them and gave us permission to remove any items damaged by the damp and mould that we couldn’t salvage.
Hardship funding from Longleigh Foundation
While Mount Green’s repairs and maintenance team carried out work to the resident’s home, I applied to the Longleigh Foundation, a charitable foundation set up by our partner Stonewater, to help with replacing some essentials.
Prior to temporarily moving out, the resident never owned a bed – believing they were uncomfortable – and instead slept on a mattress on the floor. However, in their temporary accommodation they came to enjoy sleeping on a bed and were open to having one in their home.
Within a week, a grant of £1,000 was awarded, enabling us to buy new furniture for the resident’s bedroom, including a new bed and mattress. I wanted to make sure they felt comfortable in the home they were returning to and so I used some of the leftover funds to buy curtains, a rug and some other pieces to make it feel homely.
“I wanted to make sure they felt comfortable in the home they were returning to and so I used some of the leftover funds to buy curtains, a rug and some other pieces to make it feel homely”
The process of applying for the funding and buying the items couldn’t have been simpler. A member of the Longleigh Foundation’s team even called me when I made the first application for a crisis grant to tell me that we wouldn’t meet the criteria, but to apply to the hardship fund instead – ensuring we got the help we needed without any delays.
I also achieved something I never thought I would and built flat-pack furniture – a proud moment indeed!
A clearer future
The multi-agency and holistic approach that we’ve been part of whilst helping this resident has led to a brighter future for them. Working with teams across Mount Green but also with Stonewater and the Longleigh Foundation has enabled us to achieve a really positive outcome and transform this resident’s home.
They recently moved back in, and their reaction was what prompted me to share their story. I was really nervous to show them their ‘new’ home, as this amount of change could be really difficult to handle. But because of the collaborative approach we took and the regular communication and updates we had with them, they were genuinely over the moon, and so was I.
But, of course, the support doesn’t stop there. Now the resident needs to keep on top of managing their home, and to help them do this we’ve put in place an agreement for us to visit them at their home to carry out an inspection every fortnight.
Helping this resident through a challenging time and to a safer, more supported future is something I’ll never forget and is exactly why I do the job I do.
