"I was surprised by how tidy the place turned out," said Mr. Kimura (in his 60s), whom our volunteers helped improve his living environment by cleaning and tidying up. He was unable to clean his apartment daily on his own, and his room was covered with household wastes. When Mr. Kimura still manage to prevent the spread of pests by disposing the food scraps regularly, he is not able to move as much as he would like to due to the wastes inside the house which holds a risk of slipping and getting injured. For Mr. Kimura to continue to live safely, he needs social services. A social worker at a Senior Citizen Support Center contacted Habitat for help as the home needed to be substantially cleaned up to allow social services to begin.

Mr. Kimura was supported by four volunteers from Bloomberg, a long-standing supporter of Habitat for Humanity Japan. They actively shared ideas to make Mr. Kimura's room safer to live in even considering the location of a new trash bin. Their teamwork resulted cleaner and tidier room within half a day. During the cleaning, they found many art magazines, a hobby of Mr. Kimura's, which led to friendly conversations with him.

Mr. Kimura is suspected having a mild intellectual disability. He moved into his current apartment several years ago, but his new futon was still stowed away in a box and the curtains were not the right size for the window. As the volunteers talked with him, it was clear Mr. Kimura did not know how to set them up. The volunteers helped lay out the futons and put up new curtains. It took only half a day, and Mr. Kimura was pleasantly surprised to see how much his living environment had improved.

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  • After

It will take some time for Mr. Kimura to get into the habit of cleaning up by himself. A social worker is working quickly to introduce welfare services to him, as his living environment may get worse again if the services are not provided as soon as possible. Habitat will also continue supporting Mr. Kimura with the help of volunteers and social workers to ensure safe and secured environment for him.