Disrupting HIV in the Tenderloin: Glide Memorial Church’s Harm Reduction Services

Life Magazine has described Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco as the church for the 21st century. It is known for its raucous Sunday services, but also for its dozens of programs, including free meals, shelter, job training, and daycare, which make it one of the largest social services providers in the city. From a Methodist church that was mostly white and middle-class, Glide Memorial Church grew into a liberation theology-based church focused on unconditional love and acceptance, seeking justice and dignity for the marginalized, and a radical commitment to inclusion and diversity. Operating in the Tenderloin, the area of San Francisco with the highest rates of homelessness and crime, Glide works to support drug users through harm reduction, demonstrating how faith-based congregations are in a unique position to address HIV/AIDS. Harm reduction programs started in the 1980s as an underground movement to distribute clean needles to drug users during the AIDS epidemic, facilitating drug use to reduce greater harm. Now, the spread of HIV in San Francisco is minimal, aided by the big tech companies that have converged upon the area. The tech companies that have driven up housing prices and pushed out locals are the same ones that are sending their workers to volunteer making needle kits and donating thousands of dollars to Glide. This paper will demonstrate that Glide's approach is ultimately a product and proponent of neoliberal subjectivism that takes agency, individualism, and rationality to be its originating premise. This story will also shed light on religious entanglements with neoliberalism, the role of tech companies in promoting this neoliberal framework, and how decreasing drug-related harms is accorded an even higher priority than reduction of drug consumption which may sustain systems of harm in the future.