Goodbye to the old home

16 August 2020

• OC News

The completion of OC Connections’ Accommodation Redevelopment Project resulted in participants moving out of congregate care facilities into their new purpose-built homes. Key to the redevelopment’s success was the commitment of everyone who was involved to work with the residents to identify how they wanted to be supported and the model of housing that reflected personal tastes and preferences about how each person wanted to live.

The project was led by OC Connections General Manager Engagement and Partnerships, Vicki Hayes and the Residents Advisory Group (pictured below), as well as staff and families across OC Connections and resulted in the development of five new community homes and one unit. The last of the five homes was completed in December 2016, with a two-bedroom extension to an existing house being completed in April 2017.

This rewarding project concluded in November 2017, with the sale of the congregate care facilities. To celebrate this final accomplishment, the Resident Advisory Group, who were an integral part of the process, gathered to visit the now empty buildings one last time and say their goodbyes.

The occasion was filled with happiness and excitement for their new lives in their beautiful new purpose-built homes and nostalgic as the participants remembered their previous home and the friends they had made there.