Stanley Holmes, 32, talks about being homeless in Portland in February with extreme cold weather approaching. “Sometimes I will walk around and feel so alone,” he said. Friends say Holmes died Monday of a drug overdose. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
Portland police have determined that the death of a homeless man near an Interstate 295 off-ramp Monday morning is not suspicious.
Officials have not officially identified the man or issued a cause of death, but several people living in tents in the area said Stanley Holmes died of a drug overdose around 6:30 a.m. near the intersection of Franklin Street and Marginal Way.
Bruce Cavallaro said he first met Holmes three or four years ago when both men were living in Buxton. He described Holmes, who Cavallaro estimated was in his mid-30s, as mentally troubled and a bit of a loner, but also a generous friend. He said the pair had talked for about an hour Sunday when Holmes had shown up with a fresh haircut and shave.
Bruce Cavallaro lives in an encampment in Portland and said he was a friend of Stanley Holmes, who died Monday. Cullen McIntyre/Staff Photographer
“He was a goodhearted person, Cavallaro said. “He really was.”
Another man, who asked to be referred to only as Kevin, said he found Holmes’ body early Monday morning.
Holmes recently had an apartment near the Big Apple on Park Avenue and frequently opened his doors to members of the homeless community, including Kevin. But after losing the apartment, he joined the dozens of homeless Portland residents living in tents along the Bayside Trail.
Since the city last month decided to clear the encampments, smaller groups of tents have been set up along Marginal Way near the Department of Transportation’s Park and Ride.
Holmes did not have a tent in the area and only began sleeping under an oak tree near the road on Saturday, Kevin said. He invited Holmes to move closer to his area. But early Monday morning, Kevin and another friend found Holmes’ body in the same spot near the oak tree. They were too late to use Narcan to save his life.
Portland police found a body near the intersection of Franklin Street and Marginal Way in Portland at 6:28 a.m. on Monday. Cullen McIntyre/Staff Photographer
“I don’t know why he wasn’t trying to stay with other people,” Kevin said.
The Press Herald interviewed Holmes in February as brutally cold temperatures approached and threatened the safety of people sleeping outdoors. “Sometimes I will walk around and feel so alone,” he said at the time, telling a reporter that he had been sleeping either at the Oxford Street shelter or on the street.
Police taped off the area to investigate Monday morning but reopened the scene by 10 a.m. A cause of death will be determined by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
As volunteers from Mountainside Community Church handed out lunches to people living in the encampment, Cavallaro reflected on his friendship with Holmes, who becomes the latest in a string of deaths in the local homeless community.
“I’m just tired of losing friends,” he said. “It’s a horrible thing.”
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