Awaab Ishak housing group seeks new £168k-a-year boss after mould death scandal
A housing association who provided mouldy accommodation where toddler Awaab Ishak died due to exposure is looking for a new CEO - offering a £170,000 salary.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) was slammed following death of two-year-old Awaab, who lived in the Ilminster block on the Freehold estate in Rochdale.
His death was caused by prolonged exposure to mould at the family’s flat, a coroner found.
Horrific images from inside the property showed massive build-up of mould on ceilings and floors.
Awaab's parents, Aisha Aminin and Faisal Abdullah, had repeatedly told RBH that their home was dangerous before the tot died just days after his second birthday.
London flat for rent for £1,400 a month with bed tucked away in kitchen cupboard
He was taken to Rochdale Urgent Care Centre on December 19 2020 with shortness of breath and transferred to Royal Oldham Hospital before being discharged.
Awaab deteriorated the next day and his parents were advised by the Community Children's Nursing Team to take him back to the Rochdale Urgent Care Centre, before he went into respiratory arrest and then cardiac arrest while being transferred.
Awaab family home was covered in thick, black mould (MEN Media)Following the tragedy, RBH’s chief executive Gareth Swarbrick was sacked and Yvonne Arrowsmith put in temporary charge of the organisation, describing the Housing Ombudsman report as containing ‘sobering but not unexpected findings’.
It later emerged in the year that Awaab died, Mr Swarbrick was given a £41,000 pay rise.
Now RBH is looking for a permanent CEO to take the reins.
A job advert, which closed on Tuesday, April 25, confirmed that the new boss will earn ‘circa £168,000 per annum’ — and revealed the scale of the task the head honcho has., reports the Manchester Evening News.
Awaab's death was caused by prolonged exposure to mould at the family’s flat, a coroner found (MEN Media)
Awaab Ishak, who lived on the Freehold estate in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, died in December 2020, just over a week after his second birthday (MEN Media)“This is a crucial appointment for RBH,” it said. “Our new Chief Executive is vital to the successful future of RBH, its tenants, communities, and staff teams.
"We now need to embed the immediate changes we have made and implement our recovery plan, to regain the trust of the wider community.
“At the heart of this is our unstinting commitment to deliver high quality homes and services, as that is what our tenants rightly expect of us."
Following Awaab's death, a report found landlords the property where he died due to horrific mould saw refugees as 'lucky' to have a home, a report has found.
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Black mould caked over the walls alongside a toilet training potty (MEN Media)Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) had a culture of "othering" which saw staff hold prejudices and "lazy assumptions" about asylum seekers and refugees, the Housing Ombudsman said.
Its special investigation into the association, which came after the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, discovered a "wholly unacceptable" attitude among some staff members. It said there was a pattern of "exclusion and marginalisation" based on different identities.
Residents were treated in dismissive, inappropriate or unsympathetic ways. They were also sometimes subjected to derogatory language, the report said.
Damp and mould inside Awaab Ishak’s home in the Ilminster tower block on the Freehold estate in Rochdale, Greater Manchester (MEN Media)RBH has previously been criticised for making "incorrect assumptions" about the cause of damp and mould in the flat where Awaab lived, and not treating his family with fairness and respect.
A former staff member at RBH told the ombudsman residents had complained about mould but a manager had said it was "ok and acceptable".
The report said: "We also received a report from former staff that 'residents complained about mold [sic] and living conditions... regularly... raised it with her manager... was told it's ok and acceptable. Most of residents were refugees and she was told they are lucky they have [a] Roof over head'."
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