In 1971 Mimi Silbert founded the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco, California, an organization dedicated to helping change the lives of society's castaways-criminal offenders, alcoholics, drug addicts, and prostitutes. With doctoral degrees in psychology and criminology, Silbert set out to create a criminal rehabilitation center whose central tenet was self-sufficiency. She and a partner began working with ex-cons and drug addicts and quickly earned the respect of those she was trying to help. Delancey Street soon grew so large that it had a lengthy waiting list. The program operates under these simple rules: each resident must own up to self-responsibility, develop at least three marketable skills, earn a high school equivalency degree, perform volunteer work, and serve as a role model for other residents. "Each one teach one" is the guiding principle. The residents' skills are parlayed into a group of businesses that earns $6 million annually to support the foundation, which is run entirely by ex-cons and has evolved without one single act of violence. Since it began, more than 11,000 people have completed the four-year program. Five states have successfully replicated the Delancey Street model and Silbert has developed a training institute to provide assistance to organizations that wish to create programs in other communities. Delancey Street succeeds against all odds because Silbert requires residents to assume responsibility for their actions and for each other. She notes, "Mainly we teach our residents how to believe and how to love, [which is] difficult for people who have hurt others and who have been burned all their lives."
|
