There's a lot you cannot do easily in San Francisco's Tenderloin district: catch a taxi (I waited a half-hour for Yellow Cab before giving up), shop at a supermarket (there aren't any), and walk a block without seeing homeless or imbalanced people (sadly, there are many of both).
To me, it's an island of intense blight in a sea of wealth and prosperity. Yet if the Rev. Glenda Hope had viewed it that way, she never would have landed on that island to start a ministry that's deepened her faith, provided badly needed services and saved lives for more than four decades.
And now at age 77 she will "retire" -- an improbable thing for such a driven woman -- to focus on other causes and, in her words, "leave time to dance with God."
Hope is proof that it's safe to walk in the Tenderloin even if you're a little old lady ("little" = 5 feet tall and 100 pounds). In all these years leading San Francisco Network Ministries, she said she's had hands laid on her in anger only twice. Most people, even the drug dealers, will comply when she politely asks that they deal their drugs elsewhere.
A bigger guy like me, however, might give people a reason to be defensive, especially if I put off nervous energy. "If we walked down the street together," Hope told me jokingly, "I might have to protect YOU!" What a blessed thing: to be protected by the woman known by some as the Patron Saint of the Tenderloin.