Self-Management Pioneers Series: Delancey Street Foundation
Excerpted from the book BEYOND EMPOWERMENT: THE AGE OF THE SELF-MANAGED ORGANIZATION, by Doug Kirkpatrick, JetLaunch, 2017
Delancey Street Foundation
In the world of life-changing organizations, the Delancey Street Foundation has few equals. Dr. Mimi Silbert’s vision for a residential program to help people build lives with integrity and purpose began in 1971 in San Francisco and has spread to five additional locations around the United States. It has helped thousands of former drug users, convicts, and destitute people restore their lives through effective and accountable self-management. Delancey Street’s ability to run six facilities without staffing or funding is a testament to its amazing effectiveness; it never solicits funds or pursues donor development because its own residents are the primary source of improvement. It is where people go when they have nowhere else to go. Where else can one find former gang enemies living side by side in perfect harmony?
A colleague and I toured the San Francisco headquarters facility by the bay on a bright spring day. Carol Kizziah, a project manager and consultant for Delancey Street since the 1970s (and intimately familiar with all aspects of the organization), greeted us warmly and directed us to an on-campus theater for orientation and a tour. Carol had been instrumental in coordinating with many key Delancey Street partnerships and projects over the years, and we looked forward to learning more from her after our tour.
Entering the theater, we were joined by a criminal justice class from a local law school, also there to learn about Delancey’s recipe for success. Our tour guides were a man and woman who introduced themselves as having entered Delancey Street after hitting bottom. It was clear from their professional bearing that their past lives bore no resemblance to the present. Before escorting the group on an excellent tour, they powerfully and movingly described their own personal journeys to Delancey Street.
To become a resident of Delancey Street, a person must volunteer. It is not necessarily easy to gain admission. Current residents conduct tough admission interviews, and they don’t allow prevarication. Like most people, residents only want to live in a community with people they can reasonably trust. Delancey Street wants to create a very safe environment where people can practice being adults who are capable of change. Criminal courts may grant individuals the opportunity to apply to live at Delancey Street if appropriate for the situation. (Certain classes of crime, like arson, will render a prospective resident unsuitable.) Judges, aware of Delancey Street’s success over the last four decades, would rather have a convict turn his or her life around than remain stuck in the revolving door of the justice system.
To remain at Delancey Street, they must avoid substance use and criminal behavior while obtaining a GED and at least three marketable skills. Most residents stay at the facility for four years. (The minimum stay is two years.) Individuals come to Delancey Street as substance abusers or ex-convicts (or homeless), lacking in skills, and often functionally illiterate. In San Francisco, there are about 400 residents at any given time. Delancey Street augments the hard skills with the training in values and social skills to enable future personal and professional effectiveness.
Interestingly, although Delancey Street prefaces each guest tour with a brief orientation, there is no formal orientation for new residents. Delancey relies on a strong oral tradition to acculturate new residents quickly. A core principle of Delancey Street is “each-one-teach-one.” The idea is that each new resident is required to help the next new resident become oriented to the values and expectations of the facility. This simple yet highly effective mentoring rule ensures that all residents not only receive the core Delancey Street values but that new residents reinforce the values by teaching them to others. The values include hard work, accountability, and respect. One quickly-absorbed core value is a zero-tolerance policy toward acts or threats of violence. Either will trigger immediate eviction. Unsurprisingly, people tend to behave themselves once admitted.
When our tour concluded, we sat down with Carol and learned more about education and work, accountability, and the culture of transformation.
Education and Work
Delancey Street uses an education-based model. It views education as critical for residents in building a self-respecting, self-managing adult identity. Delancey Street refers to itself as a total learning center, where education isn’t something that just happens in a classroom but is inculcated through academics, work, mentoring, and everyday life.
At Delancey Street, education embraces all skills needed for a successful adult life including social and interpersonal skills. Delancey Street requires each resident to teach others throughout their experience there (each-one-teach-one). This one-to-one mentoring takes place wherever and whenever necessary — at school, at work, or at social functions.
In addition to entering one of several vocational training schools, each resident is required to obtain a GED. The system operates on a semester basis with “study abroad” opportunities. A resident who entered the program in San Francisco, for example, may take the Delancey Street bus to the program in New York for a semester. A major key is making people feel successful so they will create success by breaking old, bad habits and replacing them with new, effective ones. Delancey Street wants people to focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses.
Delancey Street asks people to work hard. It has created twelve businesses using a social entrepreneurship model — teaching business skills to solve social problems. San Francisco has a café and bookstore, a restaurant, a moving business, and several others. Delancey assigns each resident to a business and provides a mentor. Residents start at the bottom and work their way up, building a strong work ethic in the process, which local employers have learned to appreciate.
Delancey Street believes in placing residents in jobs outside of their comfort zone. For example, a former chef may be assigned to work in landscaping instead of the restaurant, thereby teaching humility. While Delancey Street is willing to try new entrepreneurial ventures, it accepts that not all of them will pan out. New ventures should be very labor intensive and extremely simple to run.[1] Residents can earn greater decision rights and authority based on job performance and energy level, which encourages hard work and integrity.
As Delancey Street puts it: Economic Development and Entrepreneurial Boldness are central to our model’s financial self-sufficiency and to teaching residents self-reliance and life skills.[2]
Accountability
Delancey Street has a powerful culture of accountability. It relies on its residents to acculturate newcomers quickly and effectively.
Residents are expected to immediately call out their fellow residents on behavior detrimental to the facility, its residents, or the culture. If a resident sees someone doing something wrong and ignores it, he or she is as guilty as the rule breaker. Delancey Street residents don’t shy away from confrontation; they embrace it. Residents regard confrontation as the opposite of snitching; it is a willingness to help the other person out of care and concern.
While direct communication is usually desirable, its appropriateness may depend on the circumstances. Very serious issues are taken to a council of residents for resolution.
While residents are free to leave Delancey Street, they are never alone there — someone is always watching out for them. Delancey Street provides a highly structured environment where people learn how to develop adult skills reinforced by small groups and the culture itself. At Delancey Street, peer pressure is the strongest force for growth and change.
Culture
The culture at Delancey Street feels like a very large family because that’s exactly what it is. There is no staff of experts to “fix” people according to a therapeutic model. Delancey Street embraces an “AS-IF” philosophy; it encourages residents to behave AS IF they are decent people of integrity from day one, regardless of their past or present circumstances. Over time, residents come to understand that they are hardworking, decent people of integrity because that’s what they have learned to become.
Delancey Street pays close attention to the little things — encouraging excellence and confronting mistakes. Delancey people acknowledge little wins because they add up over time and are easier to achieve than big wins. Personal growth is an incremental, day-by-day process.
Each resident is assigned to a “tribe,” or peer group within the facility. Each resident meets with his or her tribe to have a frequent, honest facilitated discussion about areas for improvement. Once residents get past the initial shock of unvarnished peer feedback, the sessions provide a powerful guide to individual improvement.
Delancey Street encourages frequent, effective communication. It keeps people busy virtually all the time. When residents aren’t working or being tutored for the GED, they are attending peer groups, parenting workshops, seminars, dances or debates — frequently at lunchtime. Delancey Street has a powerful culture of continuous, engaging action. And it works, creating thousands of self-reliant, self-managing people of integrity.
Isn’t that what all businesses need?
