Help for Hoarders Why a response team is more effective and less expensive for towns than more traditional responses By Elizabeth Wade, Community Liaison, Mental Health Association in New Jersey, and David Buzby, Atlantic County Fire Marshal Officials in towns and cities across the country face the same challenge: how to manage the neighbor or renter who has accumulated too much stuff. Hoarders live among precarious towers of unused possessions that create increasingly dangerous situations for them and their neighbors. Hoarding is certainly not new, but recently there is more public awareness of the disorder thanks to popular TV depictions. The term “hoarding” is being replaced with the less-stigmatizing term “finder/keeper.” There’s also been a shift in the way communities respond to hoarding situations. The concept, based on a task force or alliance model, has been successfully duplicated in parts of many states, including the first, which started in Virginia in 1998. Among other states with utilizing this model are
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Massachusetts, California, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Minnesota, and Connecticut, among others. Tragic stories of injury or death sometimes prompt the change; in other cases a human service worker is touched by someone’s sad circumstances. New Jersey is joining the growing list of states that have adopted community-based collaborations. The model unites officials from multiple disciplines, such as firefighting, public health, code enforcement, housing providers, and social workers to affect positive change. Often animal welfare is included as well. “There are not many mental health issues that require a collaboration or coordination of efforts like this,” said Robert Kley of the Mental Health Association in New Jersey (MHANJ), which is introducing evidence based techniques designed to assist Finders/Keepers. “But certainly this qualifies as one of them.” In an alliance such as this, members typically meet quarterly to problem solve cases as a group.
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
