This is part one of a two-part series. Read part two here.
Dino Smith made his home in San Francisco for more than 30 years, living in apartments and single-room occupancy hotels in the Tenderloin and South of Market. When he died of sepsis in November 2020, he became one of the city’s unclaimed dead.
Each year, hundreds of people die in San Francisco whose next of kin either can’t be located, or can’t afford the cost of funeral services. In some cases, family members may refuse to claim someone because of estrangement. When this happens, the city pays for cremation services and scattering at sea, according to Reuben Houston, owner of Colma Cremation and Funeral Services, who’s held the contract to take care of the city’s unclaimed dead since 2021.
“It’s sad, because their loved ones don’t know that they passed. They may have fallen out of contact with the family,” Houston said, adding that it’s an honor to work with these cases.
“I do it out of love. I understand there’s a contract element to this, but those who are in our care are well taken care of, and their life is celebrated,” he said.
Neither Houston nor the San Francisco Office of the Medical Examiner could provide details about the dead who wind up “unclaimed” — their ages, ethnicities or how they died. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the medical examiner’s office saw 378, 384, and 355 unclaimed dead, respectively, according to Executive Director David Serrano Sewell.
That’s up from 180 to 200 in 2004, as reported in the East Bay Times that year. The numbers of San Francisco’s unclaimed dead have, unsurprisingly, increased alongside overdose rates and deaths among homeless residents.
But not everyone who winds up unclaimed is unhoused or even marginally housed, according to Pamela J. Prickett and Stefan Timmermans, the authors of “The Unhoused: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels.” Many succumb while in stable housing, but may have lost touch with family, run out of money, or both.
Skyrocketing funeral costs are also a factor, said Barbara Kemmis, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America. “Funeral poverty is a real issue. It’s an open secret in health care: Family members are at the bedside until the moment of death, but disappear and won’t claim the body. They don’t have the money. And then it does fall to the jurisdiction.”
‘I had no idea who his family were’
Smith mostly lived in SROs, but also occasionally on the streets, according to Anne Bluethenthal, founder of Skywatchers, a Tenderloin organization that cultivates collaborative performances between professional artists and the neighborhood’s marginally housed residents. He joined Skywatchers as a conga drummer in the mid-2010s and quickly became friends with Bluethenthal, she said.
“He was a really dear human being, with a huge laugh,” she said. “He didn’t do a lot of talking,” but when she called each week to check in and remind him to get ready for meetings, “50 percent of the conversation was peals of laughter. He loved to laugh.”
Smith, whose legal name was Ronnie Rembert, was a tall, broad-bodied man with dreadlocks. He adored reggae and often wore Bob Marley T-shirts, Bluethenthal said. He struggled with his health, particularly in the year before his death; his swollen feet hurt all the time, and he complained of stomach problems, she said.
In early November 2020, Smith was checked into Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, lucid but very sick, and told staff that Bluethenthal was his emergency contact if anything happened to him. He went septic and his organs began to fail. By the time they called Bluethenthal, Smith was on life support.
“They said, ‘When you’re ready, we’ll take him off life support,’” she said. “I had no idea who his family were, or where they were.” She gave the word, and was with him when he took his last breath. He was 66.
When someone dies in San Francisco, city officials work to identify them and locate any family members who can claim them. Sometimes identification is easy; the deceased might be carrying a driver’s license, or be with someone who knows them. Other times, investigators piece things together from clues at the scene of the death, interviews with witnesses and neighbors, searching records and social media, according to city administrator spokesperson Angela Yip.
In most cases, the next of kin will agree to claim the deceased and make funeral arrangements. But in some others, “despite our efforts, the next of kin refuses, fails or neglects to make disposition arrangements,” Yip said. If someone remains unclaimed 30 days after their death, the medical examiner’s office asks Houston to come pick up the body.
When the medical examiner can’t find any next of kin, the case gets referred to the Public Administrator’s office to dig deeper. If that office can’t find anyone either, and if the deceased didn’t leave behind the resources to cover their own funeral costs, the city can declare them “indigent.” They, too, usually go to Houston, according to Yip.
Houston receives between $450 and $995 for each cremation, plus additional payments for picking up bodies ($125), and scattering at sea ($125 per person when they take several out at once, which is how he typically does it), according to Colma Cremation’s contract with the city.
Many afternoons, Houston picks up unclaimed bodies throughout San Francisco, from morgues at the medical examiner’s office, at local hospitals and occasionally at other funeral homes. The next morning, he takes them to the Irvington Crematory in Fremont for cremation. Houston stores their ashes for one year; if they remain unclaimed, he takes a boat out just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge once a month to scatter them at sea. He carefully notes the latitude and longitude of where each person is scattered, in case next of kin come forward in the future and want to visit the same spot. The medical examiner’s office also keeps good records in case family members come forward later, Yip said.
During the scattering, Houston’s team plays music, including “Taps,” since he figures some of the dead are veterans. “We don’t know their life story,” he said. “That dash from date of birth to date of death is their life story.” Getting more information from the city’s investigations would help him tailor these services more, but right now he learns very little. “There’s an element to this where you’re celebrating their lives.”
‘The body should be tended properly’
Not everyone who’s deemed unclaimed winds up under Houston’s care. In Jewish and Muslim tradition, bodies must be buried whole — not cremated, though some Jews are beginning to embrace cremation. Both the Sinai Memorial Chapel and the Islamic Center of San Francisco are available to provide burials and services for indigent and unclaimed Jews and Muslims.
“If there’s any indication that someone’s of the Jewish faith, they will notify me to take care of them,” said Robert Perez, one of the managing funeral directors at Sinai. “We take care of them exactly as if they were a loved one. Our traditional rituals are performed, and they are placed in a traditional casket.”
Sinai owns the Eternal Home Cemetery in Colma, Home of Eternity Cemetery in Oakland and Gan Shalom Cemetery in Briones. Unclaimed dead are buried in one of these spots, in an Orthodox section if it’s clear they were Orthodox Jewish. “They are placed among everyone else, not in a separate plot” for the indigent, Perez said.
Each year, Sinai buries about 25 unclaimed Jewish people, said Liz Orlin, Sinai’s executive director. Funeral and burial costs are covered by donations to Sinai, which is a nonprofit.
“This is an important part of our mission,” Orlin said. “The Jewish values of death and dying are to take care of the deceased and show them respect.”
Likewise, the Islamic Center of San Francisco has purchased spaces in Muslim cemeteries in Antioch and Novato to bury community members who die without means, according to longtime board member Naeem Patel. Most often, Patel works with families who’ve lost a loved one but can’t afford funeral costs; he can only think of one instance where he arranged burial for an unclaimed Muslim. But if it happens, he’s able to help.
“In Islam, we believe the body should be tended properly, with prayers and rituals. When we go to the cemetery, we take three handfuls of dirt and put it in ourselves. We wouldn’t want anyone to get cremated,” he said.
And, occasionally, family members come forward to claim someone’s ashes after Houston has cremated them. In those cases, the medical examiner’s office asks him to return those remains. According to the office’s fee schedule, families would typically pay $1,196 to claim them but, since the pandemic, the medical examiner’s office hasn’t charged anything aside from shipping costs, Yip said.
‘It’s important that their story is told’
When Bluethenthal left the hospital after Smith’s death, she assumed they would contact her to make funeral arrangements. But the next day, she didn’t hear from anyone. “I started calling, and I couldn’t get any information,” she said. “I was frantic.”
Smith’s body remained in the morgue at San Francisco General for weeks. Bluethenthal kept calling around, but “eventually let go” of the hope that she would have any say in what happened to him.
Just as she’d given up, she got a call from an acquaintance — a former travel agent she’d worked with who was moonlighting in the hospital’s records division and came across Smith’s case. She told Bluethenthal to call the city clerk’s office and ask to take responsibility for him, but they told her they were searching for family, and would get back to her if they couldn’t find anyone.
Ultimately, Bluethenthal was able to claim Smith’s remains. She arranged and paid for his cremation, and placed his urn at Faithful Fools, a community-building organization that works with unhoused and marginally housed Tenderloin residents. He rests alongside the ashes of others in the community who’ve died, she said.
She made those choices for Smith because “I know he’s a free spirit, close to the Earth, didn’t want to take up space,” she said. “He loved his Skywatcher family, and this keeps him close to his family.”
Houston said he’s relieved any time someone like Smith winds up with family or friends rather than being scattered from his boat. But he’s also grateful to do the work he does, and to speak up for those who have died without family to claim them.
“It’s important that their story is told — what happens to those who passed on unclaimed,” he said. “It’s about people knowing what happens to the lost souls.”
Thank you for doing this story. It’s lovely to see people in the community doing whatever they can to honor the lives of those who don’t always receive that honor and respect during their lifetime, and doing it in ways that I hadn’t considered.
This is a beautifully written story, and not nearly as depressing as I feared after reading the headline. How we treat our dead is a fundamental aspect of humanity, and I’m glad there are people doing this work who genuinely care to treat these people with respect.
So moving and written with simple matter of fact language, filled with telling details.
Thanks for the work that went into this.
Thanks, Naomi.
Would not be surprised if they were placed on the voting rolls,
a la Chicago style.
You don’t have to speak the truth . Was a lovely article . I think we can judge a society on how we treat the dead . Your comment was true but harsh .