Falls residents want relief, help for homeless amputee

June 22--Not more than a block from Niagara Falls City Hall, a homeless amputee has slipped through gaps of Niagara service agencies and for at least four years lived at a derelict home in the 500 block of Seventh Street.

Nearby residents attest to his increasingly erratic behavior, including standing stark naked in plain view of residents and their children, defecating in public and hurling vitriolic tirades complete with racial epithets at his minority neighbors.

A pair of those neighbors, retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Debbie Payne and Joan Jones, are currently in treatment for their cancer diagnoses and describe being at wits' end over the situation.

Residents took their concerns to city hall during Wednesday's meeting of the Niagara Falls City Council, pleading with officials to do something to help the man and alleviate the disturbance in their neighborhood.

Despite frustrations, the residents also expressed sympathy for the man, wondering aloud why no one seems to be able to properly care for his obvious needs.

"First and foremost, he needs help," Payne said Thursday outside the property. "That's the bottom line."

Initially, Jones and fellow neighbor Michelle Catanzaro said they attempted to assist the man, providing him with blankets and food.

After a harsh winter, neighbors said the man sustained severe frostbite resulting in the partial amputation of his left leg. Without a caregiver, Catanzaro said she had at one time redressed his festering wounds. Maggots squirmed in his still-fresh incisions, she said.

Several other residents in the neighborhood said the smell coming from the property has prevented them from being outside in the recent warm weather. They are also reluctant to allow their children to play in front of their homes under the circumstances.

"It's putting our health in danger," Payne said.

Jones said she moved to the recently constructed multi-unit on Seventh Street to escape a "war zone" on 24th Street. Now she is living what she described as an "American horror story."

Jones said the situation has caused her to be awakened at odd hours of the night by the individual banging on her door. At other times, she said she has been accosted with racial slurs.

"I was shaking so bad this morning I had to call her," Jones said last weekend of her friend Cynthia Scott, who lives around the corner on Sixth Street and is familiar with the man as a longtime neighborhood presence.

Christina Rogers, the mother of four children between the ages of 3 and 17, was born in the City of Niagara Falls but spent significant time living in Montgomery, Alabama. Rogers and her family live directly next door to the decrepit property at 522 Seventh St., which had a private owner before it was condemned by the city Wednesday afternoon.

During Wednesday's council meeting, city officials confirmed the house was foreclosed upon during the most recent in-rem tax proceedings.

"I have never in my life lived in a neighborhood where homeless people live like this," Rogers said on Thursday.

The individual reportedly spends most his time on the home's porch. Food bags, malt liquor bottles, discarded medical supplies, empty cigarette packs and soiled clothes are surrounded by smeared human waste.

The neighbors could not even estimate the amount of times they have made emergency calls for assistance in recent years. According to police, 68 calls for service have been logged at the property since 2015, 18 of which were recorded in the past six months.

Andrew Touma, the city council chairman, said he was not aware of the circumstance until Wednesday's appearance by residents. It is tragic from all perspectives, he said.

"No one should have to live in those conditions," he said Thursday. "First of all, I feel bad for the residents that are exposed to something like that, the children and adults. Secondly, I feel awful for the young man, he certainly has some challenges that need to be addressed medically."

According to residents, the individual has been repeatedly discharged from local hospitals. Touma said longterm care creates a budgetary strain on medical centers, but some form of sustainable care is necessary to address the man's needs.

"I don't think the hospitals are looking for long-term care because it's a financial drain on them, from my observation," he said. "They kind of push them back into the community and it becomes a community problem."

Touma said he and his city council colleagues would be monitoring the situation in the future.

"We just need to make sure as a city we're not leaving anybody behind," he said.

In an emailed response to questions, Josh Veronica, a representative from the office of State Sen. Robert Ortt, R-North Tonawanda, who serves as the chairman of the state Senate'sMental Health and Developmental Disabilities Committee, said he was limited in what he could discuss due to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), a strict law governing individuals' medical privacy.

"We, of course, want this to be resolved and want the neighbors to feel comfortable. Due to HIPAA privacy laws, the information that we obtained was limited in nature, however, we were assured that this individual is currently being provided with the necessary services available," Veronica said.

Neighbors have doubts that it can be handled by city or county officials, saying they have contacted various individuals throughout the years to no avail.

To climb the bureaucratic ladder, Payne recently sent certified letters to the state Office of Temporary Disability, the state Department of Mental Health and the state Department of Health. She recounted her local frustrations in one of the documents.

"Despite numerous calls to city and county agencies (over the past three years), this situation has escalated to such a critical level where we believe his life is at risk, as is the public health and safety of the neighborhood children and residents," she said in the letter.

"We are of the understanding this past winter he developed frostbite and spent a good portion of the spring in Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center. He was seemingly discharged three weeks ago to the porch," it continued. "Our group contacted Niagara County Adult Protective Services, the supervisor stated they are aware of the problem, however they are not having success in finding appropriate housing. Niagara County Department of Health has been made aware of our concerns about (the man's) health and the conditions of the property. City of Niagara Falls officials have also had difficulty in finding a solution.

"Simply put, none of these agencies offered any solution in regards to his health or the health and safety of the community," the letter said.

Pat Bradley, a spokesperson for the medical center, said it is the hospital policy to discharge patients to safe living conditions, saying they go by information provided by the patient or caregiver. Protocols are different for those enrolled in the medical center's "Health Home" system, which assigns specific coordinators to monitor patient care outside the walls of the hospital.

In the event an individual is a social services recipient, a representative of the agency would be responsible for attesting to the habitability of the individual's discharge location, Bradley said.

The Niagara County Department of Social Services did not return a request for comment on Thursday.

Seth Piccirillo, the city's Director of Community Development, said on Wednesday his office had been in contact with the Health Home program, local missions and social services regarding the issue. The group would be evaluating possible sustainable care options.

"We need him to agree to that for it to work longterm," he said.

In the interim, Piccirillo said his office would have a company evaluate a clean up of the property.

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