I did the city bus tour instead and a fair bit of just walking around both of which proved reflective (more later). However the main purpose of my visit to San Francisco was to attend the Delancey Street Foundation's two day 'Institute' which I did yesterday and today. This is a kind of full immersion course in the Delancey Street model for those who want to replicate it or simply learn from it. I'm not keen on replication but I am keen on learning so I took the approach that while unique creations tend not to travel well there is something to be taken from the experience of the people who have done the creating. This was certainly true this week as the Delancey Street model is a radical departure from many of the concepts and practices I take for granted in working for an organisation like Cornerstone where the support worker/person we support relationship and distinction is key. Delancey's relevance to the work we do is that they too try to respond to those who have come out of prison to no other support, many with learning difficulties, disrupted education and attendant issues such as substance misuse and homelessness. Where they differ however is that they are entirely a 'self help' structure and take their ethos from the vision of a charismatic leader, Mimi Sibbert, now in her 70s and still very much directing operations. A full explanation of how this ethos works in practice can be found on their website (www.delanceystreetfoundation.org). What it means is that everyone-every single person-in the organisation is a 'resident'. In other words someone who has come needing a place to be, help to change and a community that will support them in doing so. There are no paid staff and no 'experts', a term that is used quite dismissively. The idea is that once you have been helped a little along the way yourself you pass on your learning to the newcomers. The stress is on outward activity, putting others first and recognising your own responsibilities. All of this I described more fully in the previous post 'Meeting Delancey' after visiting their New York facility. This week was about experiencing it.
Delancey Street Foundation's residential complex at 600 Embarcadero, San Francisco.
Their success is staggering. Over 40 years they have grown the organisation to six communities or 'facilities' across the USA, the original and largest here in San Francisco being home to upwards of 300 residents. This includes several businesses all run to a highly professional standard which generate most of the organisation's income and provide learning, skills and occupation for residents. Home removals, a fabulous restaurant and cafe/bookshop are among them and are all utilised by 'Frisco's' trendiest and smartest. A rule at Delancey is that everyone graduates with three marketable skills. Recognising that many have histories and limitations that will never allow them to proceed into certain jobs, the emphasis is on getting people skilled and qualified in those areas where employment is at least a possibility: driving, construction, hospitality,retail, catering. Yesterday we were given an overview of how all this works, heard some personal stories and got to ask questions in preparation for today when we 'did it'.
We were each assigned to an 'industry' for the morning having shared breakfast and a motivational input with residents at 7am. By 8 we were with our supervisors. In a spectacular misjudgement of my skill set I was sent to work in the kitchen and spent the next two hours chopping potatoes and making sandwiches. On its own I could take or leave that as an activity but what it allowed me to do was to share in the work of Bobby and Chris, two residents who had nothing but good things to say about what Delancey was doing for them. As we chopped we talked, and while the question as to why this model should meet with such success seemed not to interest them at all, it fascinated me. Later, having lunch in the bookstore/cafe, run with an outstanding degree of customer care by Angela whose tasteful choices in fiction, poetry and artwork lined the shelves and walls, I again tried to get at what it is about Delancey that works. Perhaps understandably the people there find it hard to name and are reluctant to analyse it too much. For me there was as much to wonder about as there was to admire, and that was a lot.
Is it that professionals too often just get in the way? Does the experience of having been there before someone else give you an authority or authenticity no one else can have? Maybe. I suspect though the success of Delancey lies largely in every person's need to feel valued and respected by other people, at least some of the time. Most of us get this through some accomplishment in education and work as well as in personal relationships. Delancey works to build all of that up in a peer setting where mutual accountability is everything. It's very impressive and in its way quite moving. That people who make it through the first demanding months usually want to stay beyond the required two year commitment was no surprise to me at all. That the ones we met; clever, articulate, impressive people all of them, had gone on to find employment outside, or positions of responsibility inside, and were building responsible lives was also easy to understand. Delancey holds itself unashamedly to a high standard and is clear about who can and cannot be helped here. I wonder if that kind of self confidence and clarity draws those with the potential to rise high.If it does it's no less necessary for that.
Angela, seller and lover of good books, in Delancey's bookstore and cafe.
Without a doubt Fyodor would have approved of many aspects of Delancey Street. Yet on my tour of the city by foot and bus on Wednesday I kept puzzling over the seemingly disproportionate numbers of homeless people about whom I think he would also have wondered. The weather accounts for many, I suppose. It gets chilly here in winter but you won't freeze. But the degree of obvious distress and mental illness, something that will exclude a person from being admitted to Delancey on the grounds that this does require professional help, is what's really disturbing.
It interested me very much to learn that Delancey had been named for, and modelled on, the experience of immigrants to the US. In another life I used work with asylum seekers and refugees and what was always striking was how driven, resourceful and often, gifted I found them to be. Of course. To get yourself out of war or poverty and make it across a couple of continents, and then to start to establish a life in a completely alien and usually hostile culture takes all of those strengths and more. So we always used to wonder about the people who didn't come because, for whatever reason, they just didn't have it in them to get out. What was happening to them? Nothing good probably. As I bussed and walked around this lovely city, made my way to 'work' at sunrise this morning and left Delancey this evening, I walked past a dozen or more of those who are not making it and who, it seems, no one can help. It was easier to think about the positivity of Bobby and Chris back in the kitchen but, as I feel sure Fyodor would say, easier isn't better.
