My Story – Richard Odendaal

Supported Housing isn’t just an industry I’ve been in for over 25 years—it’s also very personal. For some years of his adult life, my dad was homeless. He struggled with mental health and homelessness, and if you ask if that had a subconscious effect on me, I can only say: yes, likely.

I began in Security in the late 90s, running my own business of managing & safeguarding the estates of high-net-worth individuals before I migrated to Supported Housing. And what first hit me was: the systems in place just weren’t working.

Whether it was security guards managing vulnerable people (who were often triggered by authority) or support workers doing the night shifts and dreading it—there was a constant battle to retain staff & cover no-shows, all while trying to manage the property & its people.

So over 25 years, I took the best out of everything and created a staffing service that runs like a military operation: wherever there’s a support staff need, we always show up—always—24,7 and on short notice. Our staff are given extensive support training so they know how to be calm but assertive.

And then backing each one of them, all around the clock, is our senior management team—a real mix of industry veterans who bring their deep experience, ground-level understanding, and true passion to what we proudly feel is the ultimate solution: AGS Support’s fully-managed, hybrid-trained support staffing service.