A short film (watch above) exposing the sickening conditions at St Mauritius House, a sheltered housing scheme catering for the needs of African-Caribbean, Asian and ethnic minority elders, has gone viral and forced the Hyde Housing Group to issue two statements via Facebook.
Further to the posts relating to the video of St Mauritius House we would like to respond to all of you who have posted on this matter directly from our Group Director of Housing:
“We are concerned that the issues highlighted have taken too long to resolve and apologise for the distress caused to residents at St Mauritius House. We are contacting all residents today and would like to assure them that we are taking action to address all the issues raised and bring these to a satisfactory resolution as a matter of urgency.
Today our contractors are on site to attend to the repairs, followed by work on individual flats. Tomorrow specialist contractors will carry out a second round of baiting of communal areas for vermin and residents are being contacted to arrange treatment of individual flats early next week.
Our resident services manager will be available on site next week to address any specific individual concerns and a full meeting will be arranged with senior staff from Hyde within the next two weeks to address these issues and discuss what arrangements can be made to improve the housing management service going forward.
These matters will be addressed with the utmost urgency and we are sincerely sorry for the time it has taken to respond.”
Yours sincerely
Carol Carter
Group Director of Housing………………….
Further to the posts relating to the video of St Mauritius House we would like to provide an update to all of you who have posted on this matter directly from our Group Director of Housing:
“We are sorry to hear that residents at St Mauritius House have a number of concerns which have taken time to resolve.
Most of the repair issues mentioned in the film have now been fixed. There are a few remaining repairs which will be completed in the next week.
The problems some residents have experienced in relation to rodent infestation are likely to have arisen due to large scale building works in the local area displacing vermin. Our contractors have worked to try to eradicate the problem, and this week and next week are attending to lay down further bait in common areas and individual flats as necessary. Residents will be compensated for any reasonable costs incurred for vermin treatment in their homes during the time it has taken to resolve the current situation. We will make sure we focus effort on ridding the scheme of this problem.
We have checked our records regarding the gentleman who said he had been without lighting in his home for over 100 days. A works order was raised to replace a light fitting on 10 December and the light was fixed on 15 December. It appears that this related to a leak which was dealt with as an out of hours emergency on 4 September, so it appears there was an unfortunate oversight in carrying out the follow up work. This doesn’t seem to have been brought to our attention previously and we are very sorry that our resident had to put up with this inconvenience.
Overall the scheme is now in good order, but we are committed to making sure that communication with residents is improved.”
Yours sincerely
Carol Carter
Group Director of Housing
The POWER of social media.
I want to see evidence of improvements. There should be also an investigation in to how this was allowed to happen in the first place and in to Hyde’s questionable attitude towards the elderly residents.
Thanks to Maureen and her son Omari for making this film and lighting a match under Hyde’s backside. If it wasn’t for them and news outlets like Mad News, The Voice and The Daily Mirror alongside social media activism, Hyde would still be ignoring the residents of St Mauritius House.
Let’s continue to keep a foot on their necks.
MAD NEWS UK 
I have listened and viewed the video and it’s shocking but not surprising as the elderly are not being cared for in today’s society. However Hyde Housing do need to be brought to bear and outed and this has been done. I see that they have released statements of apology and try to explain however I am continuing to share so that they keep to their promises to rectify all the serious issues.
Must keep the pressure on them now that you’ve got their ear. If, in a month (or less) , there has been no radical improvement you’ve got to let us know. Please don’t let them gag you or try to put you in a corner. Don’t take your foot off, this is a collective fight for human rights and dignity. SOLIDARITY
My mother has been waiting several months now for repair work to be carried out on her ceiling due to water leaking from the apartment above. Hyde have told her the repair work is her responsibility, not theirs.
My sister has written directly to Carol Carter nearly three weeks ago and has yet to get a reply from her.
This response from Hyde is just a knee-jerk reaction to them being lit up in the public eye. They were and have been well away of the problems with St. Mauritius House for a long time.
Please contact CQC (Care Quality Commissions).
What puzzles me about this video was the lack of staff. What is their take on the matters? Where’s the Service Manager? Kitchen staff? Do any of the residents have carers? If they’re just as disgusted as yourselves and the residence, they should give a statement too. Or get in touch with care companies that provide any of the residents with care and ask if they can send a supervisor to assess and write a report. Unfortunately, these things do take time but keep on their case. Keep pushing.
I truly hope this gets sorted. All the best.
After having no action of complaining to Hyde Housing about the appalling disrepair issues and health and safety concerns a petition should of been signed by the residents and sent to the director of housing after they failed to address the issues…. This case should be sent to the housing omnibus for compensation for unjurest stress ill health and failings to why the repairs has taken so long?? This needs to be investigated as it is not clear from the letter why it’s taken so long hence the fact some one could of died how would they have then been compensated???
Its appauling the elderly residents of Hyde House have experienced living unsanitary filthy conditions due to multiple repairs. it appears that the Managers and directors have no concerns for impact on the social and emotional unjurest stress that this elderly people endured as a result the failings of the housing association in providing a duty of care. After reading the response from Carol Carter I believe this is an unsatisfactory response as it does not stipulate why there was a delay in the extensive repairs including the rodent infestation.
The next step now is to go to the housing ombudsman to take the case forward to request a consideration of compensation for the residents and how to make improvements in the running of Hyde House Within the administration and general service delivery.
http://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk 0300111300
It is very clear from Omari’s video that the problems at St. Mauritius were both appalling and long term, so any attempt to try and justify them is merely compounding the offence.
What is clearly needed here is a proper and thorough investigation by the regulatory authorities, and provision for continuous monitoring.
No one young or old should be living in such condition.
Help is available which includes Legal Aid.
If interested please call 020 8761 3555
Phil Wilson
Maybe I need to do same as been living over a year with issues, still no end in sight, and I’ve got children, disgusting how Hyde expect residents to live, God help them if I go to the papers with my list of problems!! I hope they sort these issues asap these residents there should not have to live this way.
Carol Carter, if that was your mother or father who had endured such appalling continuous living conditions, being ignored, how woukd you have felt? What would you be wanting now for reassurance for the future? Think about that first before replying with knee jerk and some what questionable responses.
How on earth could you be allowing your staff to be providing such incompetent and disgraceful services to that extent?
Have you considered the seriousness of your failings?