Luci Lee would seek out her brothers as often as possible, driving to their known hangouts to deliver home-cooked meals and blankets. She would take them home occasionally, but with small children of her own it was hard to let them stay for long.

"I tried to get them to look into other resources, but they felt so helpless," Luci Lee said. "When people are in that mode, they feel like they can't help at all. So you have to literally take them by the hand and pull them in."

According to his sister, Joey had been picked up on a warrant and died in his sleep at the Salt Lake County Jail on July 13. Pat Lee died two months later, also in his sleep, on Sept. 19, at Luci Lee's Salt Lake City home. An Air Force veteran, Pat, who was 60 when he passed away, had an appointment that day to enter a detoxification program at the VA hospital.

Months after their deaths, Luci Lee still wonders if she could have done more to help her brothers. And she wants to raise awareness about all of Utah's homeless population, particularly her Native American people.

"We need to have more compassion for all people, especially those out there because we don't know their lives," she said. "We need to maybe come to better grips, a better understanding of why they're out there."

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E-mail: awelling@desnews.com