Delancey Street Foundation

The Delancey Street Foundation, often simply referred to as Delancey Street, is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that provides residential rehabilitation services and vocational training for substance abusers and convicted criminals. It reintegrates its residents into mainstream society by operating various businesses - such as restaurants, catering and moving companies - all of which are wholly managed and run by the residents themselves. The foundation's methods have been widely praised and have been emulated internationally.

John Maher was the principal founder of Delancey Street in 1971 with three friends from Synanon and the help of attorney Mike Berger. Maher (1940-1988) was a self-proclaimed "bum" and drug addict and former Synanon member who was the subject of two books, John Maher of Delancey Street by Grover Sales and Sane Asylum; Inside the Delancey Street Foundation by Charles Hampden-Turner; a 1974 segment of 60 Minutes, "Love Thy Neighbor"; and a 1975 television movie, Delancey Street: The Crisis Within. Mimi Silbert (Co-founder), a Boston-bred criminologist from UC Berkeley, began grant writing for the foundation in 1972. Maher once said, "I could either be a bum or a great social leader. I failed as a bum, so I had no options."

Since Maher couldn't get a loan from a bank, he borrowed a thousand dollars from a loan shark for start up funds. They lived in a small apartment on Bush Street and then raised enough money to rent the Egyptian consulate building in San Francisco's posh Pacific Heights neighborhood. Maher offered the Egyptians fifteen hundred dollars a month. Maher said, "They told me they wouldn't accept a penny less than a thousand a month." Once the neighbors discovered there was a re-educational environment in the neighborhood, several formed a committee to have Delancey Street thrown out. Maher responded by buying the former Russian consulate building two blocks away at Pacific and Divisadero, and then an apartment building half a block from "Egypt," the name the foundation gave the consulate building. They named the Russian consulate, "Russia," and the other building was the "Estonia" building. When they purchased the El Portal hotel at 8th Avenue & Fulton Street, they named that building, "Egypt." But it eventually was simply known as "The Club," because it was the main gathering place for the residents.

...
Wikipedia