Coroner’s inquest: Eviction from Hamilton lodging home in focus

There was no time to secure an eviction order through the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), Amelia Acierto told the inquest into Csanyi’s May 2020 death.

“You cannot do that with Attila. Everybody is being abused. Staff is being abused.”

Moreover, she didn’t follow the lengthier LTB process because Csanyi’s social worker had lined up a bed in an emergency shelter for his departure, Acierto maintained.

“That’s why I didn’t get any eviction order, because we tried to find a place for him. The social worker worked so hard to find a place for him.”

But around the time of Csanyi’s eviction, the Bay Street South residence also ejected two other residents without eviction orders, Jen Danch, lawyer for Csanyi’s family, put to Acierto.

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• Dec 31, 1969
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• Dec 31, 1969
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“Right,” she responded.

That exchange is a snapshot of the ongoing inquest testimony that got underway this week and is expected to hear from 17 witnesses before it wraps up.

Coroner’s inquests are called to explore the circumstances of deaths with the goal of presenting recommendations that can help prevent others, but they are not meant to assign blame.

After losing his room in March 2020, amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Csanyi stayed with his father for a spell, but eventually fell off the family’s radar, sparking a desperate search to find him.

While they kept looking, an unidentified man was found atop Jackson Square on May 2. On June 5, 2020, he was identified as Attila.

On Wednesday, twin brother Richard Csanyi told the inquest how he and Attila had endured mental, physical and emotional abuse starting at the age of six. Then, by the time they were eight, the boys were transferred to a loving foster family, where Attila’s charisma and talent for baseball took flight.

But the period of abuse continued to haunt the twins, and the signs of mental illness began to show in Attila in his late teens, before manifesting as full-blown schizophrenia. Richard tried to help Attila as he cycled through years of housing arrangements and attempts at care before finding relative stability through a long-term stay at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and treatment plan.

That led Attila to a residential care facility (RCF) in the Durand neighbourhood, just south of downtown. In June 2019, after less than a year, Attila, due to behavioural issues, was relocated to Sampaguita, an RCF that housed 12 residents at the time.

An RCF is a type of private lodging home that offers accommodation and food, laundry and recreational services to tenants who can have physical, mental-health and addiction challenges. Staff also administer medication. 

In Hamilton, there are 86 licensed RCFs. Of those, 48 have municipal contracts through which subsidies flow for roughly 820 beds. This “provides an important and needed housing solution for some who are at risk of experiencing homelessness,” the city said via email.

The city’s partnership with RCFs has been the subject of a years-long staff review that’s expected to result in a report to council in 2025. Operators, meanwhile, have pressed for higher subsidies, citing stretched operations.

Some homes in the network have been the focus of scrutiny by the city and tenant advocates due to inadequate care or conditions, including poor sanitation practices, pest infestations and improper storage of medication.

They include Sampaguita, which Acierto has operated since 1991. Between February 2019 and January 2020, a period that overlapped with Attila’s tenancy, the residence received five bylaw notices relating to property standards, three for cleanliness issues and one concerning licensing. In particular, there were problems with bedbugs.

After Attila’s death, Acierto told The Spectator her staff of personal support workers (PSWs) couldn’t handle him. “The proper care is in the hospital.”

In his testimony, Richard Csanyi said his family felt alienated from the home, recalling how staff on one occasion denied him entry to visit his brother. Having to share a room with another person was an “issue” for Attila, as were the bedbugs.

But had they involved him in attending to Attila’s outbursts and hoarding, it would have made a difference, Richard offered.

“I completely believe that the lodging home was not equipped enough. Like, they did not have the training to handle people with severe schizophrenia,” he said.

On Thursday, Acierto, who is a nurse by occupation, and PSW April Lay told the inquiry they tried to deal with Attila’s escalating behaviour — hoarding “garbage” from the street in his shared room, smoking indoors, aggression and belligerence — to no avail.

“I love them so much. I want to take care of them so much,” Lay said of residents, “but Attila did not listen.”

At first, Attila was fine, but as time wore on his behaviour changed, a shift that tracked with his refusal to take oral antipsychotic medication, the inquest heard.

After-hours visitors in his room were also an issue, said Lay, who recalled an incident that involved death threats after she failed to convince them to leave and called 911.

Attila also wielded a “big knife” and said “he’s going to kill me; he’s going to kill the residents,” she added.

Lay, who is the sole PSW on overnight shifts, noted that February 2020 incident in a handwritten log book. But she struggled to explain why the month of March had been struck out and replaced with February, and the year 2022 changed to 2020. The date of another logged incident had also been changed.

“I did not make a story,” responded Lay, explaining she was tired from work and struggling to remember the events of four years prior. “I don’t want to win. I don’t want to lose.”

Acierto, whose accounts of events at times didn’t line up with those of Lay, said she “was not aware” that Attila had stopped taking his medication and hadn’t heard about the knife incident.

She agreed with Lay’s account of needles, syringes and bags of white power in Attila’s room, but expressed bewilderment over her observation of him shooting up in his room.

At one point, inquest counsel Jai Dhar told Acierto he was “confused” about whether Acierto had told his social worker about the needles and drug use.

She and Lay both described Attila punching a woman in the hallway, but Acierto couldn’t explain why she didn’t file a mandatory report to flag it. “I don’t know. Maybe I forget or was busy.”

But she did file a report that described Attila punching an older man just outside the home on March 9, two days before his eviction.

The day of his departure, he wouldn’t take the taxi she’d called for him to go to the shelter and instead left with a friend, Acierto said.

“I thought he was OK until the police called me sometime in May. I thought he was doing fine.”