So Joyce has been transient and homeless ever since, living primarily outdoors for more than 20 years. He ended up in the Boston area partially because he grew up here, but also because his brother, Kerry Joyce, lives in Somerville.

Kerry Joyce expresses his frustration at his brother's homelessness.

"It's a chronically sad situation.... It's a struggle to live outside in an urban environment, where you're constantly vulnerable--it's more work than a job, really," he says. "We've tried to get him to explore other options, but it's difficult. He's an artist, and it's hard to go from being homeless to having a studio."

Reflecting on their past, Kerry Joyce says his brother had a happy, well-adjusted childhood in a middle-class home, graduating from St. Sebastian's Catholic High School in Needham.

"He had a lot of love growing up and still does," Kerry Joyce adds. "He is an intelligent, knowledgeable and moral human being. He just doesn't take certain things in stride the way other people do."

Although Brian Joyce once "semi-lived" at his brother's house, he currently stays outdoors in the Cambridge area but sees his brother several times a week.

Joyce declined to divulge exactly where he spends his nights for fear of police reprisals.

From his two decades on the streets he says he is disappointed with police treatment of the homeless.