If someone dies without assets and owes Medicaid, will the County Public Guardian clean out their apartment?

I am asking about my brother, who lives several states away and is a hermit. Thank you. I am mostly curious about what the Public Guardian will do.

I know at the senior housing complex here in Tonawanda, if a tenant dies, the Super immediately changes the locks and nobody gets in unless they are the Executor and they better have proof of that.

Your best bet would be to know who the building superintendent is, the man with the keys. If you want things to go to other tenants, and there is always a need, even for clothes and pots & pans, let him know. If there are family mementoes, ask him to safeguard those items and send them to you. Reward his kindness if you can.

No the landlord cannot pick through and take things. By law, it all goes to storage. In reality, the apartment is usually ransacked by other tenants who know the person died, long before the landlord gets there.

I am not referring to any nursing home.

I suppose the landlord would be the one that can pick through the household goods and take things they want? If no family wants to travel there?

A couple of things come into play here. First is the landlord, who wants to rent the apartment. The second is the Public Guardian. The landlord will most likely have the Furniture sent to a storage facility. The Guardian then would have to pay the moving and storage fees, but if there is no money, what happens is that the storage facility will just auction off the locker to collect unpaid storage fees. The body will be cremated and the ashes sent to a pauper's grave site. Medicaid could claim the stored stuff, but they probably won't.
BUT if the person died in a state with Filial Responsibility Laws, like PA, the Nursing Home may turn around and sue the children for unpaid bills. AND if the person had assets in a trust, some states, like NY, allow Medicaid to go after the Trust. It can get very dicey.