"Dirty George died last month. He was found in his apartment on his couch. He'd been dead a week. The coroner says it was a heart attack. That is the merest part of the story."

That was probably the most insensitive thing a reporter could say. Clearly, Mr. Fiorito has no respect for the dead, given the way he decided to sensationalize his article. Congrats Joe on being a far worse and far more inhumane writer than Rosie.

A lot of the Rosie DiManno stuff you've called out has been atrocious, but I have to disagree on this one.

Maybe it's just me, but I thought the whole article seemed quite thoughtful.

Should the government step in when someone can't keep his apartment clean?

It's not a good article, but aside from the pulpy prose, I'm not sure if it's fair to compare it to DiManno's worst. DiManno is lurid for the sake of being lurid, taking other people's tragedies and reducing them to one-dimensional characterizations that are invariably exploitative; she seems to view each crime as a literary challenge.

The Fiorito article is different. The key sentence is "She asked if she might show me the apartment, so I could see what life in community housing is like." While I agree that the article is worse for being overwrought, I really think he meant well; he was attempting to describe the squalor of TCHC housing, at the request of the man's daughter, presumably for the precise purpose of painting such a visceral picture in the paper. Unlike DiManno, his aim isn't to explain why a criminal deserves the harshest punishment imaginable, it's to raise awareness of the conditions of the City's housing stock and encourage change.

I've asked support care workers why they don't step in and do something and they say that they are powerless until the person asks for help.
I've seen instances of this in my building and it's not a comfortable environment for the rest of us.
The story is also about how the government and support networks fail those they are meant to support.

There could have been a solution for George. Perhaps a community living arrangement with a drop-in social worker. In his case, maybe the others in the community could have broken George's isolation and gotten through to him.

When the mental health system was de-institutionalised in the 1960s, the problems were transferred to the local community. Out-patients simply had a welfare cheque, a telephone number for a social worker and the necessary prescriptions.

In other words, the community failed the most vulnerable at the very beginning of their situation rather than work with them to an improved state--then releasing them into supervised communities, for a start.
Rather a case of building a sand castle and not being mindful of the incoming tide and wondering the next day, what happened?

I thought it was a student who wrote it maybe. The very short, jerking sentences and contrived-sounding descriptions. Also how does this guy know the difference between death smell and dying smell? Anyway, yes this is an issue that needs to be written about, but it sounds like a segment of Bart's People from that Simpsons episode, except with worse writing style. That's what gets me - not the sensationalizing, but the writing.

"The writing was bad. The style was worse. Joe Fiorito sits on a couch, head in his hands. He is a good man. He is a proud man. But he is a broken man. He does not smell of life. He smells of life gone wrong. Tears seep through his fingers. Ants crawl in the puddle of tears on the floor. Through his pain they find water."

You literati are missing the point. Fiorito is part of a long and grand tradition of hard-boiled but compassionate city columnists. Would you call Jimmy Breslin or Mike Royko "bad" writers? Do you think the article would have the same impact if Jeffery Simpson was describing that bedsit?

DiManno can't write (and she's an idiot to boot) but Joe's heart is in the right place and he knows exactly what he's doing.

As a criticism David, may I say this.

I see no difference between the Star posting a sensationalist headline and Torontoist reposting the same article with the the intent of sensationalizing a sensationalist headline.

The article is by no means prize-worthy, but the journalist at least is presenting information to the public, all your doing here is using Torontoist as a soapbox to voice your own discontent with the quality of "competitor" media.

Would it have been too much to expect TOist to present their perspective on the subject matter?

through his pain they find water.

Seriously? Have you read some of the crap posted on this website?