The daily battle to keep people alive as fentanyl ravages San Francisco’s Tenderloin

The corner of Turk and Jones Streets in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco in February. Photograph: Balazs Gardi/The Guardian

It’s 9am in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district and sleeping bodies line the sidewalks as Felanie Castro sets out on her route in Glide Foundation’s harm reduction van.

Along Ellis Street, hungry people queue up for the Glide’s daily breakfast of buns, hard-boiled eggs and plastic-wrapped muffins. Down the block, a fire department truck, part of a city response team, awaits the day’s first drug overdose call.