Latrobe Valley's elderly get their homes greened for free
Being frail and elderly or having a disability hasn’t stopped hundreds of people in the Latrobe Valley from getting free energy and water saving devices installed in their homes, thanks to Environment Victoria’s project with care workers.
August 2010
Those hundreds of people all get regular visits from Latrobe City Council’s Home and Community Care workers, to help them continue to live independently at home. But this year the care workers have been adding something extra to their visits, after training by Environment Victoria in how to do household sustainability assessments. About 300 people have had their homes assessed by their care worker, getting advice on things they can do which will not only reduce their environmental impact but also cut the cost of their bills and make their homes more comfortable.
Thanks to funding from the Department of Sustainability and Environment and from Latrobe City Council, we’ve also been able to help nearly 200 of those households to receive free energy and water saving devices. Council staff have been able to fix leaking taps, replace old showerheads with water saving ones, install flow controllers in taps and put in draught seals which will keep the homes warmer and reduce heating bills. The project has been just one of many in our Regional Sustainable Living Program, which has been working in the Latrobe Valley since mid 2009.
In July Project Manager Charlie Davie did a follow-up evaluation session to hear about the care workers’ experiences in delivering the assessments. All of them said they thought the project had been worthwhile. In fact, all of them had taken the knowledge they’d gained in the Environment Victoria training sessions and employed it in their own homes. “They’d done things like adjusting the temperature of their fridges and freezers if it was too low, and turning their hot water systems and their heating down if it was set too high,” explained Charlie. “One woman even got solar hot water installed at her house after reading about it in an Environment Victoria fact sheet.”
With a whole lot of positive feedback, plus a few good suggestions for making the project easier to run, Charlie is now getting ready to train care workers at South Gippsland Shire Council and Baw Baw Shire Council. The training will be happening in August, so as the second half of the year rolls on, elderly people and people with disabilities in South Gippsland and Baw Baw Shire will also get the benefit of greener homes and cheaper energy bills.
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