By Sylvan Lebrun, Chicago Tribune The Tribune Content Agency

Before they lost contact, Ellie Dyckman relied on her younger brother Joey. He helped her cope with her divorce, taught her two daughters how to swim and ride a bicycle and coached her daughters' softball team in grade school.

He had a messy room, but his car was "always immaculate," Dyckman said. He loved "The Three Stooges," and used to spend hours on Saturdays watching cartoons with one of his nieces.

Yet as his opioid addiction escalated, the once-inseparable siblings drifted apart. On the day Joey died, Dyckman had no idea that her brother was even living on the streets.

"Just because I hadn't seen him for 10 years, it doesn't mean I thought any less of him," Dyckman said. "My kids remember him as a great uncle, and that's how we're choosing to remember. ... No one should have died like he did."

Today, Dyckman is still on a quest to find out what happened in the last days of her brother's life. He was found dead Dec. 1, 2023 outside of a city-run community service center in East Garfield Park with fentanyl in his system.

That night, security footage caught Joey De Giraud D'Agay sitting outside of the Garfield Community Service Center for 10 hours in near-freezing and rainy weather, just feet from a heated shelter equipped with the Narcan that could have reversed his overdose. The following morning, he was found without a pulse.

The Garfield Community Service Center at 10 S. Kedzie Ave. is advertised by the city of Chicago as the city's only "24/7" resource center for the homeless, where staff can try to connect those in need with emergency shelter. However, the center is not a shelter. There are no beds, and homeless visitors are prohibited from staying in the building overnight even if there are no shelter beds available elsewhere in the city, and even on the coldest days of winter when the building operates as a city warming center.

More than a month passed before Dyckman learned her brother had died. The Cook County medical examiner's office tried to reach De Giraud D'Agay's brother about funeral arrangements, but he ignored the missed call from an unknown number for weeks. No one else from the city reached out, Dyckman said.

"I could not believe it, that he died in the way he did, and then he was left there for that many hours," Dyckman said.

Since then, Dyckman has continued to search for answers about why he ended up at the center on that rainy night - and why no one helped him in time. Aided by Marc Raifman, a Social Security disability benefits attorney and homelessness advocate, Dyckman has spent months sifting through documents and receiving mixed messaging from officials. She has struggled to reconstruct the truth of the events leading up to her brother's death.

One thing Dyckman has come to understand, she said, is that what happened to her brother is far from a unique occurrence. Since 2019, two others have also died of opioid-related causes at the address, 10 S. Kedzie Ave, according to the medical examiner's database. Two other overdoses have occurred just steps away: directly across the street from the center in 2018 and around the corner in 2023.

But "none of the others have been on camera, so it's not talked about, it's not thought about," Dyckman said.

In Illinois, the average age of death for the homeless is almost 20 years younger than for the general population, according to a July 2024 report funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health. People experiencing homelessness in Illinois also disproportionately die from drug overdoses and exposure to excessive cold, and have a higher likelihood of many chronic health conditions - factors that were all at play in De Giraud D'Agay's death, the official cause of which was ruled to be a fentanyl overdose.

However, multiple medical experts and advocates interviewed said they believe that the 63-year-old De Giraud D'Agay may have survived that night if he had received some form of care: Narcan, warm shelter or medical attention.

Raifman told the Tribune that the city seems to be missing out on an opportunity to investigate and learn from De Giraud D'Agay's death, as his story reflects "so many little failures" in the systems that exist for the homeless in Chicago.

"You have things like this happen and there are just lots of questions about, 'Could this have been prevented?'" Raifman said. "The answer is obviously yes. We don't necessarily quite know how yet. So we want to look at that."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Family and Support Services wrote in an email to the Tribune that the city was "deeply saddened" by De Giraud D'Agay's death, adding, "our hearts go out to his loved ones."

"The health and safety of those in and around our facilities remains a top priority," the spokeswoman wrote. "We know that people experiencing homelessness are more likely to experience adverse health outcomes, which is why our department continues to advocate for more resources to create safe, dignified places for them to stay including shelter and housing."

DFSS declined to comment on whether it believes that anything should have been done differently by building staff on the night De Giraud D'Agay died. They did not respond to a question about whether they had investigated the death.

At a meeting of Chicago homeless service providers and advocates on Dec. 20, just weeks after De Giraud D'Agay died, Raifman confronted DFSS Commissioner Brandie Knazze about his death, calling it a "collective failure" of homelessness service providers in the city.

"He was steps away from what he needed, he was outside, he was alone," Raifman said, according to an audio recording of the meeting.

He didn't yet know Joey's name. Almost no one did. But Raifman had seen a Facebook post that was circulating among local homelessness advocates, which depicted a body hidden under a blue tarp outside of the Garfield Community Service Center - commonly referred to among advocates by its address, 10 S. Kedzie - on the morning of Dec. 1.

In her response to Raifman, Knazze said that Mount Sinai Hospital had dropped De Giraud D'Agay off at the center after discharging him from their care. She added that the city was having "conversations" with the hospital about ensuring that individuals have the resources to support themselves "before they are just dropped off in the wintertime."

Months would pass until Raifman would manage to connect with Dyckman. Then, he would realize that this timeline did not add up.

Medical records provided to the Tribune by the family show that De Giraud D'Agay was discharged for the final time from Mount Sinai Chicago on Nov. 28 just after 5 p.m., more than two full days before he can be seen outside 10 S. Kedzie on security footage.

When asked about this discrepancy, the DFSS spokeswoman told the Tribune that De Giraud D'Agay had been wearing a hospital wristband when he was found dead. She added that "many individuals" have said in the past that they arrived at the center "directly" from Mount Sinai or other hospitals.

Sinai Chicago spokesman Dan Regan declined to comment on De Giraud D'Agay's case. But he told the Tribune that their social workers may try to "provide a connection with local shelters, community centers and other resources" for homeless patients. He added that they may also connect patients with "transportation home or to another location."

In the week and a half before he died, De Giraud D'Agay visited Mount Sinai four times: twice for leg pain from being struck by a car, and twice for opioid overdose. His last visit was on Nov. 28, after he overdosed and was revived with Narcan.

When Dyckman received her brother's records from Mount Sinai, she was shocked to see one particular note from this final visit: "patient reported wanting to go to detox."

Regan wrote in an email to the Tribune that the hospital offers an inpatient addiction treatment and recovery program to patients who request it.

On Oct. 23, Dyckman spoke with officials from Mount Sinai. She said they told her that her brother accepted the terms of detox before being discharged, but that the hospital was then unable to reach him the following day when calling the phone number he provided.

"I want his case fully investigated, so that we can hopefully take care of the failures that occurred for him," Dyckman said. "Right now, we're not even sure how he left when he was discharged. We can't even get that much information yet. It's just ridiculous how hard it is to get the information that we need."

De Giraud D'Agay cannot be seen entering the Garfield Community Service Center on street surveillance footage from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, which was obtained in January by Steve Held, an independent journalist with the X account The People's Fabric, and verified by the Tribune. However, though Held submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for all footage from 4 p.m. onward on Nov. 30, the provided videos only dated back to 8 p.m.

At the December 2023 meeting, Knazze told Raifman that "this gentleman never made it into our office and so, not sure what happened." DFSS declined to comment on whether De Giraud D'Agay ever entered 10 S. Kedzie or requested shelter.

Beth, an outreach worker in Chicago who was formerly homeless, said that the center has long been known among the homeless population as the only 24/7 place to try to access shelter. However, due to a "high amount" of drug use nearby, most will avoid the site unless they have no other options, said Beth, who goes by they/them pronouns. Beth asked to be identified only by their first name to protect their safety as a victim of human trafficking.

"Joey went to the right place," Beth said. "That is the place you would go if you had nowhere else to go, and I cannot emphasize the importance of that. As someone who has been homeless, there are places you don't want to go. He was looking for help."

Beth noted that De Giraud D'Agay died outside of the very building that was "meant to be built for us ... somewhere we should be able to go to be safe."

At the time of De Giraud D'Agay's death, there was not a single security camera on-site at 10 S. Kedzie, the DFSS spokeswoman confirmed Oct. 21. The only footage captured that night was by the city's street surveillance cameras.

Throughout 2023, the center was generally only staffed overnight by two security guards from a private security vendor, according to DFSS. The duties of these security guards included "the protection of all persons on site" and "patrolling of the entire interior and exterior of the building," the spokeswoman wrote. Additionally, they must allow any client seeking shelter to enter the building, she added.

"Since this occurrence, the city has taken steps to strengthen security coverage at this site," the spokeswoman wrote to the Tribune.

The Department of Fleet and Facility Management, which manages security at the center, switched their security vendor to a different firm in January. In July, they installed security cameras on-site, according to Managing Deputy Commissioner Glen Cross. However, "the footage is not available in real time to any staff at the building," wrote the DFSS spokeswoman.

"The change in security vendors was not in response to this incident but was a citywide shift that had already been planned for," the spokeswoman wrote.

Available security footage from street surveillance cameras shows De Giraud D'Agay sitting on a grassy stoop just paces away from the stairs of 10 S. Kedzie for at least 10 hours before he was pronounced dead.

Starting at around 10:40 p.m., De Giraud D'Agay can be seen collapsing on the security footage, lying down for a few minutes before sitting back up. This cycle repeats multiple times before, at 12:38 a.m. on Dec. 1, he falls back again and never gets up.

Several other people can be seen sleeping in a nearby bus shelter throughout the night, shielding themselves from the rain as outdoor temperatures fell to 34 degrees.

An employee at 10 S. Kedzie told responding officers that several homeless people had been the first ones to discover De Giraud D'Agay the following morning, according to the police report, which recorded his time of death as 6:12 a.m.

By 6:15 a.m., a blue tarp had been draped over De Giraud D'Agay's body by emergency responders.

"Why does the city have more capacity to put a tarp over a dead body than to take him in and keep him warm?" Beth said. "The problem with this city is we have trouble imagining it could be any one of us under that tarp."

When Dyckman picked up her brother's remains for burial from the medical examiner's office, they said they would give her all of his personal belongings. All Dyckman took home was a "folded-up" square of paper, still wet from the rain. She had to carefully unfold the papers and let them dry, she said, before she could tell that they were discharge records from Mount Sinai.

"Had Marc (Raifman) not reached out to me, I would never have known the circumstances surrounding my brother's death and my brother would have been just another unknown homeless victim to have died on the streets of Chicago, perhaps needlessly," Dyckman said.

What she now knows about her brother's life after his disappearance: he applied for Social Security benefits, he sought help from homeless services organization The Night Ministry, he helped sell cool drinks at his friend's vending stand in the summer and he spent most of his time in the Pilsen neighborhood.

Through The Night Ministry, Raifman met De Giraud D'Agay's friend Lana Espinoza-Ake, who lives in a tent near the campus of the University of Illinois Chicago on the Near West Side.

Espinoza-Ake knew Joey for three years. He was a "nice little man," even though he was taller than her, Espinoza-Ake said, recalling how she would call him "Little Joey."

"You get used to the streets and everybody in it, and the community that you're in, so whoever you get along with, that's like your family," she said.

De Giraud D'Agay would organize group get-togethers over breakfast at McDonalds for all of his homeless friends in the area, Espinoza-Ake said. He washed windows and swept floors to make some money, and would sometimes talk about wishing he could go into a detox program, she said.

After De Giraud D'Agay got his first Social Security check in fall 2023, he disappeared, Espinoza-Ake said. The last time Espinoza-Ake saw him was in November, just weeks before his death. He was standing outside a medical clinic, complaining that the security guard had kicked him out onto the streets instead of letting him warm up inside, she said.

"He was just trying to go somewhere so that he could keep warm," Espinoza-Ake said. "That's the problem here too, that the hospitals, the clinics, the organizations, they're kicking homeless people out."

Advocates and homeless service providers in Chicago have long been concerned about the limited overnight availability of warming centers such as the Garfield Community Service Center. Through Raifman, Dyckman has worked to share her brother's story with this network.

Chicago's warming centers are only open during daytime hours, activated when temperatures drop below freezing. On the night De Giraud D'Agay died, temperatures hovered just a few degrees above that threshold.

Lee Friedman, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health who co-authored the recent Illinois Homelessness Mortality and Morbidity Report, noted that individuals can get hypothermia far above freezing temperatures, particularly if it is raining.

De Giraud D'Agay's autopsy report, shared with the Tribune by the family, reveals a number of underlying health conditions in addition to the high quantity of fentanyl in his system that was officially ruled the cause of death.

The DFSS spokesperson confirmed Oct. 21 that Narcan is stored inside 10 S. Kedzie.

According to the autopsy, De Giraud D'Agay was living with heart disease, congested kidneys and multiple active infections. Friedman said this condition of "multi-organ disease" would have made him more vulnerable to both the drugs he took and the weather.

"He was very, very sick, in the cold, with fentanyl," Friedman said upon hearing the findings from the autopsy report. "He probably did not have to die that day, if there was some attention."

On Oct. 1, the City Council's Committee on Public Safety held a hearing on Chicago's extreme weather plan, where multiple speakers called for the city to establish overnight warming options. No changes have yet been enacted for the upcoming winter. The DFSS spokeswoman wrote to the Tribune that the city is currently "reevaluating" its policies.

Beth, the formerly homeless outreach worker, said that "we need to keep our eyes open" this winter, as De Giraud D'Agay's story could be repeated.

Homeless people are often treated as "disposable," Beth said. They recalled the September shooting of four people sleeping on the Blue Line, as well as the many who have frozen to death on the streets in the Chicago winter.

"I didn't know him, but that could have been me," Beth said. "It's important that people know how much love the homeless community has for each other even when we have not met each other, because there's a shared struggle. We've all been without."

On Oct. 19, Dyckman met Espinoza-Ake for the first time. Over lunch on the warm fall day, the two shared stories about Joey for hours, comparing old photographs.

"I just hope that people understand that he was a regular guy, just like their brother, their son, their uncle," Dyckman said. "There was a time he was there, and so that's just what I want people to understand. He was my daughters' godfather. I mean, he was, you know, it's just sad. It's just sad."