News / Society
‘Essential’ home repair service under threat
Campaigners claim proposals to slash funding for a scheme, which carries out essential repairs and adapts the homes of elderly and disabled people in South Gloucestershire, amounts to a “dereliction of duty” towards the vulnerable.
At a budget meeting tonight councillors have been recommended to reduce the funding of We Care & Repair from £189,000 to £30,000. The not-for-profit organisation helps pay for home improvements and adaptations to help people to stay living independently in their own homes.
The scheme currently operates in BANES, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
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Chief Executive Malachay McReynolds said the service has helped some 6000 people in South Gloucestershire over the past 4 years: “We think it is a very important service…it gives people a sense of independence and self worth. The interventions we make are the sort of things that enable people to live fulfilling lives and not to feel that they are abandoned by the rest of society and having to cope on their own.”
Pensioner Mrs Neale who lives in Wick said the service “meant everything to her” when she was left without heating last winter when her boiler broke down. “I don’t know what we would have done without them as we couldn’t afford a new one.”
We Care and Repair also helped pay for a new boiler for 74-year-old Mrs Ciccaraello from Downend. “They were such a support,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it and they delt with everything.”
A South Gloucestershire Council spokesperson said: “The proposed changes form part of the council’s six-year savings programme which aims to save £40m by 2020 in response to ongoing national austerity measures.
“It is important to note that no decision has been taken on these proposals which will be considered in detail by elected members at the committee meeting.”
However, Tony Watts, chair of the South West Forum on ageing, described the plans as “not only reneging on the council’s own stated housing policy, but downright dangerous”.
He said the money enables vulnerable people to “remain independent”. He added that “very modest sums” spent carrying out essential repairs help “prevent falls,” and it is “an investment in the safety and well being of older people that pays for itself many times over”.
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