Delancey Street Foundation

[1] The program began in an apartment on Polk Street[2] that Maher, a self-described "bum" and "ex-junkie," rented to house people recovering from drug and alcohol use.

As the number of people at the apartment increased, the group pooled funds to expand and formalize the organization, initially called Ellis Island and then renamed Delancey Street.

The first location was in a Bush Street apartment, but Maher eventually raised enough money to rent the Egyptian Consulate building in the affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood.

[citation needed] Maher became friends with one of San Francisco's renowned artists, Dugald Stermer, art director for Ramparts magazine.

During the latter half of the 1970s, Delancey Street acquired an old "dude ranch" in New Mexico, and over the past 40 years has opened facilities in New York, Southern California, North and South Carolina, and Massachusetts.

Between 1989 and 1990, the Embarcadero Triangle, a mixed use development with commercial space and 177 apartments on the San Francisco waterfront, was built by Delancey Street members.

[8][1] In 1985, Maher left Delancey Street due to personal problems, including an arrest for drunk driving, and Silbert took over running the foundation.

As of January 2015, Mimi Silbert and six residents from the early 1970s, Abe Irizarry, Jack Behan, Tommy Grapshi, Stephanie Muller, Jerry Raymond and Teri Lynch Delane, have remained to help run the Foundation.

The average Delancey Street resident has had 12 years of drug addiction, has been in prison four times, is functionally illiterate, unskilled and has never worked for more than six months.

Traditional family values stress work ethic, mutual restitution, social and personal accountability and responsibility, decency and integrity.

The four-storey complex includes retail stores, a restaurant, a screening room, a café bookstore and art gallery, and housing units for 500.

[13] In spring 2000, through San Francisco State University, a cohort of Delancey Street students embarked on an innovative program, with several earning a BA in Urban Studies in 2004.

Since 1972, these companies include catering and event planning, restaurant, café, bookstore & art gallery, corporate private car service, digital print shop, handcrafted furniture, ironworks, plants & glass, ceramics, landscaping, moving and trucking, paratransit van & bus services, screening room, specialty advertising sales, and Christmas tree sales and decorating.