Supporting people who hoard

Often what you find is that people are ‘under the radar’ says Ronan and have been hoarding for a long time. He explains 'you're getting people who have potentially hoarded for 20, 30 years, and that are more likely to become known to older people's services through their health failing.' You also realise that they 'people have been hoarding for decades and people that have been hiding, hiding is maybe the wrong word, but have been managing it themselves without any (help), or not managing it themselves… ' 

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) have just started a pilot in Fife – visiting and supporting a small number of people with hoarded homes to provide hands-on support in de-cluttering and making the home safer. It’s led by one of the Community Safety Advocates (CSA), Evelyn Taylor, who has scheduled visits with them every couple of weeks to build a relationship with people to make an impact on hoarding.
 

This is our first story of innovation addressing some of the challenges around supporting people who hoard. We hope that these inspire you, and that by going under the hood, you can see what key steps or ingredients are needed and what might translate for you!

We are especially interested in teams/services who have managed to address some of the key challenges we are aware of - whether these are small or large!

One current estimate is that 2-5% of the population has issues with clutter/hoarding, but this is hard to estimate as there is so much shame for someone admitting they have a clutter or hoarding issue that has reached problematic levels. Even at 5% this may be a modest estimate, translating into 125,000 people in Scotland with hoarding issues - and that doesn’t include others in the household affected or family and community members outside the home.

2025 has started at a fast pace with Hoarding Taskforce activities. Iriss Development Leads Kerry and Louise have been out and about facilitating stakeholder events with the taskforce local partners - Pan Lanarkshire, Glasgow City and Clackmannanshire and Stirling. Over 200 people participated across the three events, representing a fantastic cross-section of agencies, groups and organisations that provide care, support and public protection at local and national levels.