Welcome home: Durham

Offering a sense of independence and choice is fundamental to the rights of our tenants, and we make sure to revisit our properties to hear what our tenants think of their new living spaces.

As the tenants have a range of abilities, we've worked with closely with Care Provider Community Integrated Care, who run the scheme, to ensure that the property has been fitted out to cater for everyone's safety and specific needs, while retaining as much independence as is possible for the tenants.

Each apartment has been fitted with induction hobs, new white goods in fully fitted kitchens, with individual details such as anti scald taps, lockable cupboards, full bathroom and/or wet rooms, and durable flooring fitted where appropriate. Every bathroom is completely individual to each tenant and contain a range of baths, showers and wet rooms.

Many of the apartments have spare rooms that can be utilised as guest rooms, calm spaces, or used for leisure activities, giving tenants more choices around how they want to organise and customise their living spaces.

Now home to five (soon to be six!) tenants, we revisited Durham in January 2019.

It was wonderful to see that everyone had settled in well, both at home and in the village where the local community, shops and pubs have already welcomed everyone with open arms.

Having their own front doors has given the tenants greater independence to explore the local village as well as space to enjoy their own homes without disturbing each other in a safe, and quiet environment.

One of the tenants, Gavin, is able to go to the shops independently and already having made friends with Kieran, they are planning pub trips together.

I love it...since I've come here I've felt a lot calmer

Kieran

Mersten Tenant

Kieran previously lived with family and although he'd only been in his new home for a week, he was keen to show us around, mentioning that he enjoys being “master of his own home”. Kieran had personalised his apartment and was proud to share the stories of his very impressive sheep collection, DVDs, and the new furniture he'd chosen.

Kieran is really enjoying having more control over his environment. He now does his own dishes and has even asked his support worker to stop assisting him with this task.

Our aim is always to improve the lives of our tenants and when we spoke with several of the other fantastic support workers on the day, it was wonderful to hear that the tenants were all showing improved behaviours and greater independence since moving to the property.

As always, we wish everyone a wonderful time in their new Mersten home!

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You can read more about the beginning of our Durham story, and see photos of the property here.