Hoarding Connection of Cuyahoga County

We recognize hoarding as:

• The acquisition of and the failure to discard an unimaginable number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value to persons other than the person who hoards.
• A mental health illness that may cause significant distress or impairment caused by the hoarding behavior.
• Living or work spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed, and which may lead to hazardous conditions for the hoarder and people in their surroundings, such as guests, pets or neighbors.

The Hoarding Connection does not provide direct services or financial assistance to hoarders. However, we can help connect hoarders to community resources, and offer peer-led support groups to help individuals address their hoarding issues.

The Hoarding Connection of Cuyahoga County provides Buried in Treasures groups throughout Cuyahoga County (Ohio).

Each Buried in Treasures session focuses on a chapter in the book, Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding (Tolin, Frost, & Steketee, 2nd ed. 2013, Oxford University Press). Buried in Treasures is a voluntary action-oriented peer-led treatment group. The facilitated group is highly structured and time-limited, consisting of 15 sessions spread over 20 weeks.

The sessions are facilitated by a nonprofessional who may have (or have had) hoarding disorder or a special interest in it. In-person activities include discussion of each chapter, exercises from the book dealing with acquisition, discarding and disorganization, and homework between sessions. Research by Randy Frost and colleagues indicates that up to 73 percent of participants are much or very much improved by the end of the group.

Please check our calendar below for upcoming Buried in Treasure sessions.

To join the Hoarding Connection, please contact us using this form.

To develop your own Hoarding Connection, we recommended having the following:

• An agency sponsor that will support the Connection’s efforts.
• An identified point person for each organization.
• Representatives from a variety of organizations that play a part in addressing the hoarding problem.
  (Housing inspectors are important members of a hoarding connection because each locality’s housing codes and the way the housing inspector interprets them which will determine the community’s response.)
• Minimal operating procedures, determined by the Connection. At the very least, how confidentiality is managed should be addressed.
• An updated list of community resources which can help in a hoarding situation. Cuyahoga Hoarding Connection members identified clean-up services and financial assistance as the most needed items.
• Initial tasks for the operational stage. The Cuyahoga County Hoarding Connection identified community education and assisting new hoarding teams as its two primary tasks.
• Regular surveys to determine whether the Hoarding Connection is meeting the members’ needs.