CATHOLIC HEALTHCARE UNEARTHS BURIED TREASURE TO BRING HOARDING RELIEF

Most of us have some clutter in our lives, surrounded as we are by precious things we just can’t throw out, but for some the situation can get out of hand.

For them, hoarding can have profound effects, ranging from anxiety, physical danger such as increased fire risks and falls from trip hazards, right up to homelessness, where they can lose their public or social housing tenancy.

Catholic Healthcare’s Buried in Treasures program is a 15-week online support group that targets hoarding. It is aimed at people in NSW who are eligible for the Commonwealth Home Support Program, and are over 65 and living at home, or are over 50 and at risk of homelessness.

Run by Catholic Healthcare’s Hoarding and Squalor Team, it covers topics such as: understanding what hoarding is and why people collect and struggle to let go; motivation and confidence to regain control of your environment; practical skills and strategies on what to save and resisting the urge to collect more; and overcoming feelings of anxiety and depression.

Now in its second year, the program has been a great success, and was also recently recognised as a finalist in the 2021 HESTA Compassion in Action Social Justice Award. Run by Catholic Health Australia, the award recognises an individual or team who has shown creativity, commitment, and accomplishment in effecting positive social change.

Mercy Splitt, Catholic Healthcare Business Development Manager, Vulnerable Communities, says Buried in Treasures helps people regardless of whether their hoarding involves floor-to-ceiling clutter, or they are simply noticing that their home is getting a little out of control.

“Many people have some hoarding tendencies, holding on to ‘stuff’, whether due to need or emotional attachment, but it’s when your accumulations start to take over your home, that it becomes a problem” she says. “I’ve seen people who can’t access their bathroom or who are sleeping on the lounge or front verandah because they can’t access their bedroom.”

Program data reveals most individuals impacted by hoarding (68%) live alone, many are socially isolated or suffer depression (59% and 56% respectively). About 44% live in public or social housing, and a small majority (58%) are women.

Animal hoarding, Mercy says, usually involves older women: “The need to nurture, care for and rescue. If most of us see a cat on the street we probably won’t think much of it, and it will go home, when it’s ready. An animal hoarder may assume that cat has been abandoned and take it home.”

Mercy says the support group works through a Buried in Treasures handbook, trying to understand what hoarding is and why people collect.

For example, why is it so hard to let go of items? What are the attachments what are the attachments the individual has to those items? And why can’t they stop bringing more things home, regardless of how many of the same they may already have?

“The program is about practical skills and strategies people can use to instill a new practice behavior and start to turn things around Mercy says. “It’s about learning the skills to let go of those things.”

“And it’s dealing with difficult questions such as, ‘What if I let it go but later on I need it?’, as well as the emotional attachment to items that might hold sentimental value.

“We work to get to that stage where the memories are within you, not the item, learning to let go and coming to the realisation that your world didn’t fall apart when you let go of this item.”

Mercy says a key element also involves strategies on how to not bring more things into the home, partly by questioning why they are needed.

Buried in Treasures has had a big impact on participants’ mental states. From feeling alone and isolated, and that people around them – family, friends and neighbours – just don’t understand them, the group program lets them discover there are others out there with similar struggles.

“For example, someone will come to the group and say, ‘I planned sorting out my bedroom but didn’t do anything’,” she says. “But we’ll get the rest of the group going, ‘It’s OK, we all have bad days, tomorrow’s a new day, don’t let that stop you from moving forward’.”

Buried in Treasures began as an in-person program but was forced online by COVID in 2020.

Mercy says the transition created some initial hesitation but being online has since allowed more flexibility. For example, if a participant misses a session, they can usually rejoin another one state-wide and keep up their momentum.

Being online also allows them to join a group without bumping into someone they know. And from two groups of 20 participants in 2020, the current group is hosting about 60.

Mercy is justly proud of Buried in Treasures.

“This is one of my passions,” she says. “This is a group of people – a vulnerable community who are quite often judged and misunderstood because of their environment or their behavior.

“For example, neighbours can become quite overwhelmed and angry at the state of the environment, saying, ‘Why can’t they just clean their home or get rid of stuff?’.

“We need to educate the community that this is an outcome of other things that are going on, that there are so many underlying issues that have led to this.

“It’s that rush to judgement that has made it my mission to support people to let them have a voice.

“Regardless of how a person looks, the state of their home or their appearance, at the end of day this is someone’s home, and I will give them the same respect I’d expect from someone coming into my home.”