In the Tenderloin, memorials for the forgotten

A homeless man named Ron bundles up against the chill as dusk settles on San Francisco City Hall. For years Glenda Hope has presided over an average of two or three memorials each week. Some, for the neighborhood’s more gregarious residents, attract dozens of mourners. Others are attended by the minister and a single hotel employee.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Skid row residents loiter on the sidewalks of Turk Street in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Anyone can do a memorial, Glenda Hope said, and a clerical collar is not required. But serving the Tenderloin takes a special touch, and she has yet to find just the right person -- or people -- to take over when she retires.  (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

A man peers from a window of a cheap residential hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, where homeless people die destitute and alone on any given day. Glenda Hope has been described as a woman whose life and work have helped create “a compassionate community” in 30 or so of the city’s poorest, most densely populated blocks.   (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)