The new year is already running away with you, isn’t it?
Are the work emails piling up? Certainly, by now the shift schedule is back to normal. Maybe it was great to see the family, or maybe it very much wasn’t, but now reality is reasserting. Hopefully 2026 is also giving you things to look forward to.
But before you’re swept into your next moment, sit with a recent one that marked the end of 2025. It marked many endings, actually.
Cheryl Shanks (left) came to the vigil with the names of her loved ones who passed away in 2025. Photo courtesy Cheryl Shanks.
It was dusk in mid-December, at the plaza in front of City Hall. As the cold and the dark set in, more than 200 people gathered to walk in a procession, sing, and to remember and name the San Franciscans who had died without stable housing that year. Those who gathered held tiny battery-powered candles, forming a field of flickering motes as they listened to the evening’s speakers, who mourned the people they’d known, and those they hadn’t, filling the air with lamentations and compassion and love and rage.
“They suffered the violence of looking away,” said John Brett, a chaplain with the San Francisco Night Ministry.
“When we quicken our steps, when we cross the street, because someone else’s trauma is too much to bear or scares us, each time we look away, humanity is diminished — theirs and our own,” Brett said.
After walking and singing together, attendees gathered around the lists of names laid on the ground. Photo by David Elliott Lewis.
This won’t be the last vigil. It is both a comfort and an injustice that there will be another, 11 months from now. And another in 2027. And 2028. And so on. If that chills you, well, it should.
Below, I’m sharing the words of one of the night’s speakers. All spoke from the heart, but Hala Hijazi spoke to mine. Hala Hijazi is a member of the Board of Directors for the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, and she’s previously served on the SF Human Rights Commission and played major roles in myriad social and political initiatives. She graciously sent me her speech for publication here.
Carmen Barsody, co-director of Faithful Fools. Photo by David Elliott Lewis.
Hala Hijazi’s speech
To God we belong, and to God we return.
We gather this evening with full hearts — heavy with grief, but also heavy with purpose.
We are here to remember the lives of our neighbors. Our brothers and sisters. Those who died unhoused or unstably housed in the streets, shelters, stairwells, and sidewalks of this city.
Many died from the weight of this world: From addiction. From mental illness. From violence and despair.
But above all, many died from abandonment. From being left behind. From being alone. And that should break every one of us open.
Oh God, You are the One who sees what others overlook. You are the One who comforts when no one else shows up.
Have mercy on those we have lost. Shower their graves with light. Give them rest after so much suffering.
Dignity after so much humiliation. Peace after so much pain.
If they did good, multiply it. If they fell short, forgive them.
And if no one mourned them in life, let us mourn them now, with full hearts, open hands, and sacred memory.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught: “Visit the sick. Feed the hungry. Greet both those you know and those you do not.”
He said: “You do not truly believe until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself.”
Tonight, this vigil is not only a prayer.
It is a reckoning.
We live in one of the wealthiest cities, in one of the wealthiest states, in one of the wealthiest countries on Earth. And yet hundreds of people die on our streets each year with no home, no care, no peace.
This is not inevitable. It is a policy choice. It is a moral failure. And it is ours to change.
So let this night do more than honor the dead. Let it awaken the living. Let it summon the courage of those in power — and the conscience of every one of us — to build a San Francisco where no one is left to die alone.
Thank you for being here. For holding this sacred space. For showing up — with your presence, your prayers, and your purpose.
May we carry their names forward. May we fight for the living in their memory.
And may we never allow another soul to die unseen again.
I'm a journalist who has reported for years on San Francisco topics like homelessness, housing, and governance. I co-founded News Relay Network, publisher of the Tenderloin Voice, where I write and edit. Reach me at noah@tlvoice.org.
