AUSTIN, Texas — One victim received a fractured nose and black eye and another, days later, was found severely burned – both alleged victims of the same health care worker.
Two back-to-back assaults at a south Austin group home for residents with disabilities put a new spotlight on what advocates say is an industry staffing crisis – creating a pressurized environment that can threaten the most vulnerable.
State records, court documents and the family of Michael Bonilla say they believe a lack of staff contributed to what happened to him in September in the South Austin group home where he lived for a dozen years.
His mother, Angela Sanchez, describes her son, who has multiple disabilities, as, “Sweet. He’s loving. He has a beautiful smile.”
She said they have always had a special connection.
“In his own way, he doesn’t speak, but he will communicate in ways like, ‘Hey, I like you, I trust you, I feel comfortable with you,’” she said. “He will show you a lot of smiles, a lot of love.”
Born with multiple intellectual and developmental disabilities, Michael Bonilla and his mother were inseparable – until he was in his mid-20s and their living circumstances required him to move into a South Austin group home.
“The need to care for him, one-on-one, I wasn’t able to do that anymore,” she said.
She found a 5-bedroom, 3-bath home on Independence Loop. After the pandemic, Sanchez said her belief that her son was getting quality care from a company called D&S Community Services dwindled.
“He was neglected pretty badly, not watched properly,” she said.
She said that included missing meals – and medications.
“I would go up there and complain, and we would talk to them and they would say, ‘I didn’t know this’ and ‘I didn’t know that,’” she said.
In early September, Sanchez found her son seemingly depressed and non-responsive when she arrived for a routine visit.
“He was lying down, rolled up like a burrito, and he wouldn’t let me take off the cover and check on him – just pushing me aside like ‘back off,’” she recalled.
Then, on the morning of Sept. 6, she got a call that her son had been rushed to the emergency room. What she found at the hospital shattered her.
“Horrible. He looked like someone had skinned him,” she said. “You know when you peel potatoes and you scrape off? That’s how he looks.”
Austin police determined Bonilla had injuries consistent with “chemical burns.”
“It’s the hardest thing for a mother to see that your child was abused like that,” Sanchez said.
A police affidavit says when officers searched the home, they “observed empty bleach bottles, detected the strong odor of bleach throughout the house and bed sheets and clothing soaked in bleach” – leading them to suspect that someone poured bleach on Bonilla. Police charged 22-year-old Charles Anthony Challenger, a caretaker at the home, with injury to a disabled person.
It was not the first time police say he hurt someone in his care. Five days earlier, police say Challenger assaulted another disabled resident of the home.
The arrest affidavit states Challenger hit that resident “in the face with a closed fist, striking him in the left eye and nose area.” The resident told police that Challenger became upset “because of his radio being loud.”
Challenger remains in the Travis County Jail. Arrest records listed his home address at the time as a help center for people experiencing homelessness. His attorney declined to comment to the KVUE Defenders.
As she learned more about the two alleged assaults by the same caretaker, just days apart, Sanchez said she questioned why house operator D&S Community Services didn’t remove Challenger from the home. She believes faster action after the first attack could have saved her son from getting hurt.
A company spokesperson said in an email that D&S had no comment.
“Nobody should go through that, to see a child hurt, no matter how old they are. They are still your baby, and he’s the most vulnerable,” Sanchez said.
Texas Health and Human Services Commission records show investigators found numerous deficiencies when investigating the two assaults, that include:
- “The program provider failed to ensure that the individuals lived free from abuse, neglect or exploitation in a healthful and safe environment.”
- “The program provider failed to provide clean and sanitary living conditions for the individuals.”
- “The program provider failed to ensure the home LOC-B was free of infestations as the home had evidence of bedbugs.”
- “The program provider failed to maintain accurate, current, and accessible documentation of medication administration.”
- Inspectors found staffing shortages had been an issue, with one worker telling inspectors, “staffing is always an issue.”
Jeff Miller, a senior policy specialist for the nonprofit advocacy group Disability Rights Texas, said such situations often occur because of a well-known and ongoing staffing shortage of qualified direct care workers across the state.
“Right now, you can make more money working at McDonald’s, along with having access to benefits and paid time off,” Miller said. “You cannot do that as an attendant in a group home in the community.”
In 2023, lawmakers raised the base hourly wage for Medicaid caregivers from $8.11 to $10.60. Their goal is to get it to $19.00 an hour as quickly as possible.
“It has become a real crisis in the community and providers are having a hard time finding qualified providers, hanging on to them, retaining them – if they can find somebody to hire – and finding the quality and caliber of the kind of people we would want to see taking care of our loved ones or our family members,” Miller said.
Sanchez said what happened to her son shows the results of those staffing shortages inside homes like where her son lives – a problem she hopes will one day finally be resolved. She added that her son has spent most of that time in a nursing home and rehab hospital, but that he has now improved to the point that she’s looking for a new group home for him.
“Don’t leave these people behind. They are people too, you know,” she said.
Of the 1,113 registered group homes in Texas, D&S Community Services, aka D&S Residential Services, has about a quarter of them, according to records the KVUE Defenders obtained from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
D&S has 268 residential service locations, with 37 in Austin, according to the records provided.
It has now been five months since the assault on Michael Bonilla. Angela Sanchez says her son has spent most of that time in a nursing home and rehab hospital, but he has now improved to the point where she’s looking for a new group home for him.
Those deficiencies found at the South Austin D&S community services group home resulted in six citations and possible monetary penalties of up to $1,250 a day if the deficiencies aren’t corrected by the next inspection. State law provides that a follow-up inspection should occur within 45 days.
The Texas Human Services Commission would not confirm whether there has been a follow-up inspection since the September incidents and would only say “a final report should be available in roughly two weeks.”