The lonely life and death of Philippe Champagne
72-year-old is latest reminder of the dangers of social isolation
A neighbour complained about it to the building attendant — a putrid odour was coming from apartment #418, the last unit at the end of a long hallway in a 20-storey building.
The attendant and building manager made their way over and knocked on the door. When no one answered, they opened it.
The lights were off in the small studio apartment, but they could see the bathroom door in the back corner was closed. The smell was overwhelming. They immediately called the police.
They found him crumpled on the bathroom floor.
Philippe Champagne, 72, had died of a suspected attack of cardiac arrhythmia. By the time officers discovered his body on April 18, 2017, it was too late to do anything.
As a coroner wrote last month, Champagne was “visibly dead for a long time.” He was later identified only by his teeth.
“Mr. Champagne lived alone in his apartment,” coroner Luc Malouin wrote.
“He had no family and seemed socially isolated. He was hardly known by his neighbours.”
Champagne’s body had putrefied beyond the point of establishing exactly when he died.
But a journal found among his belongings seemed to offer a hint; for reasons unexplained, Champagne would put an ‘X’ on each passing day.
The last one was scribbled on Feb. 17, 2017, two months before police found his body.
“There is every reason to believe that is the last day he was alive,” Malouin wrote.
Champagne’s death — and the time elapsed before anyone noticed — is the latest reminder of a growing problem among Quebec’s aging population: the dangers of social isolation and the crippling loneliness that comes with it.
The building where Champagne lived, in Montreal’s Plateau-MontRoyal borough, is owned by the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), a paramunicipal agency.
A former hotel turned apartment complex called Le Rigaud, it’s part of the SHDM’s Autonomy+ housing program, which targets autonomous tenants over the age of 55 who don’t want to move into senior residences.
Though not part of its mandate as a housing corporation, Champagne’s lonely death has forced the SHDM to reckon with its role in preventing social isolation among its older tenants, doubling its effort in recent weeks to create bonds between people living in its Autonomy+ buildings.
“It is clear,” said SHDM spokesperson Elisabeth Liston, “that we cannot remain indifferent in the face of such loneliness.”
Champagne moved into the apartment complex in November 2014.
Neighbours living in the building who spoke to the Gazette did not know him. The building attendant who worked at the time of his death has since retired.
Nearly half of the building’s 312 residents are members of a tenants’ association, regularly socializing in a top-floor community room equipped with board games and books. Champagne had not joined the group.
Camil Croteau, who lives two floors below Champagne’s apartment, did not know him, nor did he hear of his death.
He couldn’t think of anyone in the building who had.
“There’s always a certain number of people who isolate themselves from the world,” Croteau, also 72, said.
“It’s sad, but it’s the way it is.” It’s a phenomenon the SHDM has been trying to curb, Liston said.
In 2018, the corporation doubled the budget allocated each year to tenant associations in its buildings that organize activities.
By 2021, it hopes to implement the “un vigilant veille sur vous” program in its 16 Autonomy+ buildings.
Created by the Montreal Municipal Housing Office, the program asks tenants to hang a pamphlet on their doorknob every night before bed and to then remove it each morning to let a team of volunteers know they’re safe.
It has also launched a community gardening program throughout its buildings, Liston said, that it hopes will get tenants outside and interacting.
“I’m not an expert, but I don’t personally believe there’s one tool that can solve isolation,” Liston said. “I believe it takes a multitude of tools and we’re in the process of deploying more. We already were, but it is now obvious it wasn’t enough.”
Born in 1945, the day before Valentine’s Day, Champagne was never mourned at a funeral service or eulogized in an obituary.
In the nearly year-and-a-half since his death, no one has claimed his body or inquired about his possessions.
Anything he left behind remains in apartment #418. After his body was discovered, the housing corporation was quick to clean the apartment, but wasn’t sure what to do with his belongings.
There were bureaucratic procedures to follow and moral obligations to consider.
It will soon be taking a photo of each item to create an inventory before storing the objects away in an empty space in the building, where they’ll be kept in case anyone ever comes forward to claim them.
The coroner’s office has listed his information online — birth date, last known address, date the coroner took over the case — in hopes that someone who knew him might notice and come forward. So far, no one has.
For two months after his death was discovered, Champagne’s body was kept refrigerated in a steel drawer at the Montreal morgue. On June 15, 2017, the morgue sent the body to be cremated at the Laval cemetery.
His ashes remain there today, buried in a simple wooden urn. They can be found near the far end of the cemetery, in a small stretch of land lined with pine trees, shrubs and flowers.
There is no tombstone or monument with Champagne’s name. Nothing to signal he’s there.
The area, reserved for unclaimed remains, is marked only by a single white-granite statue. Beneath the grass are about 1,500 other urns. Last summer, the cemetery added a bench nearby, wanting to give the public a place to reflect and honour the dead. People rarely do.
I’m not an expert, but I don’t personally believe there’s one tool that can solve isolation.