Mr C is a gentleman who having received support from Aspire for two years and three months successfully exited the service. He provided this account of his experiences.
"When my mother died four years ago I am afraid to say I turned to drink. I simply did not know how else to cope with the loss. My drinking led to a brief spell in hospital in Edinburgh where I got myself together but as soon as I was discharged and returned to the home that I had shared with my mother I started drinking again.
This led to another spell in hospital but this time it was different. The hospital refused to discharge me until I had some kind of housing support in place. They referred me to Aspire and I agreed because I wanted to go home. I was introduced to my Outreach new support worker. We had a couple of meetings at the hospital and then went to visit the house and I agreed to receive three hours support a week.
At first I regretted accepting the support. I felt afraid when the support worker came round to the house and I refused to let him in. However, Joe kept coming back and eventually we struck up a relationship.
During this time I was still drinking - It carried on like this for about eight months. However, my attitude changed and I started to meet the support worker half way and made an effort to stop drinking. I also got my service time expanded to 6 hours per week.
I also started to get involved with the local befriending scheme and started to volunteer at an over 65 club. I like getting out and seeing people. It also lets me meet people somewhere other than a pub. It is always easy to find company in the pub but they are not really friends.
I exited the service in July and I do miss the support. When it goes you miss it! But I do like seeing people at my groups and would like to do more voluntary work. Getting the housing support from Aspire did help me."
Mr C chose to get involved in the Housing Support Enabling Unit research because he wanted people to know the value of housing support