Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Help is available for hoarders

By Julia Spitz

Framingham is one of a growing number of communities, including Boston, Newton, Beverly and Gloucester, that has established a task force to deal with compulsive hoarding.

"It grew from the Board of Health becoming aware of these situations, as well as myself, and we wanted to put together a group of individuals" to address the problem, said Alexis Silver, the town's human services coordinator.

"Right now there are a few cases in the town that we're working with," she said, and "other providers in the task force are working with individuals ... whose cases might not have reached that level" of health and safety risk that would prompt a town department to intervene.

On Thursday, police found Richard Lamphere and Susan Abraham dead in their Bellingham home, where piles of the couple's possessions made the rooms virtually impassable.

"Our hope is to provide the intervention so it doesn't rise to a crisis level," Silver said..." More

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