As a double-decker tourist bus chugged by the Majestic Theatre in downtown San Antonio Friday morning, a familiar “ding, ding” signaled an upcoming stop near an uncommon place for a memorial service.
“Hear the bell? An angel got his wings,” SAPD Officer Doug Greene told a swelling crowd of more than 75 people huddled on Houston Street’s sidewalk. Most of them worked, lived or otherwise visited downtown, where they met Paul Holmes.
Holmes, a military veteran, died Sunday in hospice care on Nov. 10 after untreated colon cancer spread to his liver and lungs, his friends shared with the crowd. He had experienced homelessness for about 14 years, declining shelter from all those who offered (until his final days), but providing wit and wisdom for all those who would listen.
About two years ago, Greene, then an off-duty security officer for the Majestic, first saw the man sitting on the bench with a bible across the street from the theater in front of Bohanan’s Prime Steaks and Seafood.
“When I was a little boy, for some reason … I had this physical image of what God looked like [in my head]: A very tall, caucasian male with this long beard and white hair slicked back,” Greene said. “And I was like, hey, that guy looks like God.”
Little did I know [then] … how much the character of God dwelled in him,” he added. “You see, friends, it’s a dangerous thing to draw conclusions about somebody from a distance.”
Holmes was described by his friends as quiet, but quick-witted and “very stubborn.” He refused to talk about what led to his state of affairs on the street. And ironically, Holmes would have cringed at all the attention given to him on Friday, several speakers said.
“I know you hate this, but you deserve it,” Tommie Gonzalez of Puro Handsome Barbershop told Holmes. Gonzalez was one of many business owners to attend the sidewalk memorial and who would give him services and meals.
Valerie Narvaez, director of homeless services at Christian Assistance Ministry (CAM), first met him about eight years ago while getting coffee at the Houston Street Starbucks.
At the time, she was an outreach worker for Haven for Hope, the city’s largest homeless shelter and resource hub in the near-West Side.
“The second he saw that Haven badge around my neck, the badge that I wore so proudly, he quickly shut me down, and I learned very quickly to never ask Paul about his homelessness again, like ever,” Narvaez said. “I respected that about Paul, but I still craved to earn Paul’s friendship and trust.”
She saw his bible and they talked about that instead.
“I would come to Paul with a journal and he started to give me homework assignments,” she said. “My task was to go home and crack my Bible open and then come back with what I learned. Paul would never officially give me the answers. Instead, like all good teachers do — specifically Jesus — he would answer a question with a question, and that drove me crazy.”
Their friendship flourished.
Several months ago, however, she started getting calls from all the people he befriended — Corazón Ministries outreach workers, Centro San Antonio staff and business owners — worried about his health, she said. He still refused.
But a few weeks ago, “Paul said yes for the first time to letting our homeless response system help him,” Narvaez said.
He was admitted to Baptist Medical Center and then discharged. But Narvaez knew he needed hospice care.
Holmes was then taken to University Hospital, where he stayed for 18 days.
“By the second week, Paul had voiced to me that he had been on the streets for 14 years and that he was exhausted,” she said. “He was at peace with meeting his fate and told me that if he died tomorrow, that he would be satisfied. So my position by Paul’s side was just to advocate [so that] Paul could spend his last days on earth with dignity, comfort and control of what little he had left.”
He was transferred to San Pedro Manor nursing home for end-of-life care and died about 72 hours later, she said.
“Paul grabbed my hand and pulled me close and I whispered: What would be my last homework assignment? All he said was, ‘Genesis 3,'” she told the crowd. “I challenge you to take that home as your homework assignment, and I will not give you the answers.”
People rallied around Holmes to make sure he died with “dignity and grace,” said Trish DeBerry, president and CEO of Centro. That’s not the case for many who die homeless in San Antonio.
Last year, 322 people experiencing homelessness died in shelters, on the streets or in jail — roughly twice as many as those who died homeless in 2022.
But a skilled nursing program — which places acutely disabled or ill, chronically homeless individuals into nursing homes — launched this year thanks to a grant and no-interest loan from San Antonio-based First Day Foundation. Holmes was a direct beneficiary of this pilot program.
“I don’t care what circumstance you come from, if you were fully employed or you were on the street, all of us as humans deserve to die with dignity and grace,” DeBerry said. “The homeless response system … activated in a very good way for Paul.”
About four years into the city’s Together to End Homelessness plan, substantial progress has been made, including a reduction in unsheltered homeless, improved technology and training and increases in funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, permanent supportive housing, housing vouchers and low-barrier shelter beds.
But the system can always be better, said Dawn White Fosdick, president and CEO of CAM.
“We’ve moved one step closer to providing more and providing better for those we serve,” she said. “My hope and goal is that we can find a place for people like Paul even before they’re ready to say goodbye to the world.”
A plaque will be installed on one of the two benches that Holmes frequented, Fosdick said, with the inscription: “In loving memory of Paul Holmes – who was loved by many and whose presence reminded us that everyone should be seen.”
With the money Holmes had — thousands saved up from his time on the street — CAM has established the Paul Holmes Memorial Fund that will be used to pay for cremations and burial services for those without a home.
