Loss of housing was ‘nail in the coffin’ for Hamilton man with schizophrenia
Attila Csanyi was found dead on the roof of Jackson Square less than two months after he was evicted from a residential care facility
When Attila Csanyi lost his housing, his life fell into a death spiral.
In early March, the operators of his lodging home told him to leave when he had friends over just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold.
Less than two months later, the 28-year-old with schizophrenia was found dead on the roof of Jackson Square.
Having a home base was key to Attila’s stability, his twin brother says.
Losing the roof over his head set him adrift on the streets of Hamilton, Richard Csanyi says.
“That was the nail in the coffin.”
Attila’s tragic unravelling follows an all-too-familiar trajectory for those who know the health-related consequences of homelessness.
“When people lose their housing, they lose stability,” says Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk, a physician with the Hamilton Social Medicine Response Team.
It’s not clear how Attila died on May 2, but Richard believes a drug overdose killed his brother. Police are awaiting toxicology results.
Stephanie Cox, a lawyer with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, also says the connection be
tween health and stable housing is crucial.
She has urged the city to crack down on illegal evictions from lodging homes — also known as residential care facilities — and do more to protect their vulnerable tenants.
“People are dying because they do not have a roof over their head.”
Under Ontario law, tenants of residential care facilities should be afforded the same rights as other renters, such as proper eviction notices, but that doesn’t always happen in practice.
In December, Cox urged the city to consider a third-party advocacy office to allow hundreds of residents of the facilities to file complaints without blowback from operators.
“How many tragic examples of deaths associated with the loss of housing will it take until we take the right to adequate housing seriously?” she said in the aftermath of Attila’s death.
The city offers an anonymous phone line for residents to complain, says Rob Mastroianni, manager of the residential care facilities subsidy program and emergency shelter services.
But the exploration of an advocate’s office is part of the city’s ongoing review of the residential care facilities program, Mastroianni says.
“It’s not something that we have lost sight of.”
The city subsidizes 52 of the 88 residential care facilities in Hamilton. Hundreds of residents — frail older adults, disabled, mentally ill, cognitively delayed or those battling addiction — receive care and meals in these homes.
Some of these for-profit lodging homes have come under city scrutiny for inadequate care and conditions, including poor sanitary practices, pest infestations and improper storage of medication.
Attila’s residence at 265 Bay St. S. was far from perfect.
Between February 2019 and January 2020, Sampaguita Lodging and Rest Home landed five bylaw violation notices relating to property standards, three for cleanliness issues and one concerning licensing. All were resolved except one, which was partially resolved, the city says.
Specifically, there were problems with bedbugs and sanitation, the city says.
But at least Attila had a roof over his head, says his brother, Richard.
“There was hope while he was living in that place. He was talking to his social worker and working on getting his own place at that time.”
For about nine months, Attila was able to keep his “worldly possessions,” including “trinkets” and “pretty-looking rocks” collected during long walks around Hamilton.
But there were also frustrations at the lodge. Attila felt lonely among the older residents. “His bed was just riddled with bedbugs,” his brother said.
Attila also had a discomfort sharing a room with a stranger, partly due to his schizophrenia, Richard says.
On March 11, his stay at the lodge ended.
Richard says the operators told his family it was because Attila had brought guests over. They were worried about coronavirus spreading through the home.
Amelia Acierto, owner of Sampaguita, agrees COVID-19 was one of the factors.
But Acierto says they told Attila more than once not to have friends over. She also alleges he punched a resident in the shoulder two days earlier and that staff were afraid of his company.
Police confirmed officers were called to Sampaguita but no charges were laid. Richard contends Attila wouldn’t have assaulted anyone unless he felt threatened.
Acierto says staff worked with Attila’s social worker to secure a bed at Good Shepherd, a socialservice agency that operates shelters, but he wouldn’t go.
The lodge refunded Attila $360 — half of that month’s room and board — a few days later, she says.
“The eviction, we did it right.” But Richard disputes this, saying his fraternal twin wasn’t given any formal notice under the Residential Tenancies Act. “There wasn’t even time for him to pick up his possessions.”
Days after Attila’s rupture from the home, the Ontario government announced an eviction freeze to prevent tenants from losing their homes during the pandemic.
Acierto — who once operated a residential care facility in Dundas until it closed under a cloud of violations — says staff struggled with Attila for some time.
She acknowledges the home couldn’t handle him. “The proper care is in the hospital.”
For his part, Richard says the home lacked the expertise and staffing levels to properly care for his brother.
What happened to Attila after Sampaguita is murky, but Richard says his brother stayed at the Salvation Army and Mission Services.
He worried about coronavirus and rampant drug use at shelters. “He despised heavy drugs. He hated it,” Richard says.
But in the last full month of his brother’s life, “something triggered,” he says.
He’d shifted from marijuana to crystal meth. They found a backpack with meth pipes at his father’s house in Hamilton.
At the end of April, Attila showed up at Richard’s home in Mississauga around 1:30 a.m. He had a bike and friend with him.
Attila had welts on his leg. “He thought it was cancer.” He wanted his health card — which Richard had for safe keeping — to go to the hospital.
Richard believes the wounds were abscesses, which can be caused by intravenous drug use.
That was the last time he saw his brother alive.
On May 5, Richard contacted police to report Attila missing after his social worker told him he hadn’t been to St. Joseph’s Hospital for his injection. He hadn’t picked up his disability cheque, either.
Richard didn’t know that three days earlier, paramedics had responded to an unidentified man without vital signs on the roof of Jackson Square.
Police didn’t identify him as Attila until June 5 after making a public plea for information, despite the family’s frantic search for their loved one.
Richard met with police and took an agonizing look at the photograph that was circulated within the service.
“You could see he was hurting when he left this world.”
Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk didn’t know Attila but says his death “sadly illustrates to the extreme” what she experiences generally in her clinics.
“Tenants do not have anyone to advocate on their behalf and often do not know their rights.”
Wiwcharuk says the city is “100 per cent aware” that residential care facility operators illegally evict tenants regularly with impunity.
Rob Mastroianni, with city, says he has “heard of instances where that occurs.”
The city has “reiterated” to operators that they’re required to follow Residential Tenancies Act regulations, Mastroianni says.
But Stephanie Cox, the legal clinic lawyer, points out that councillors asked staff in December to report back in 60 days on a potential advocacy office to help protect tenants.
“Since then, the public has yet to receive a clear policy with respect to what proactive measures have been taken to ensure quality of living for tenants residing in these homes.”