What a beautiful solution the Delancey Street Foundation offers: by rehabilitating people who have “been at the bottom” and helping them find their own way back, they are creating a wonderful sense of hope. 

It’s pleasantly surprising to find a rehabilitation center set up by people who had once been addicts or convicts themselves. Only someone who’s actually been there can understand the complex emotions and uncertainty the constituents face.

Maybe that’s why the Delancey Street Foundation works.

When we look at the individual stories of the more than 14,000 graduates, the long-term impacts are not only their successful lives, but also the new and exciting lives of their children and grandchildren and the generations to come. The rewards of the struggle for success and the long-term impact of Delancey Street is the broken cycle of poverty, drugs, violence and crime, and a new cycle of learning, caring, economic, personal and family stability for many thousands of families once without hope.

The long-term impact of our work is also realized when Delancey opens a new door through which hundreds more can follow to gain access to opportunity. From the beginning, Delancey has opened many new doors. Like the door that let the first ex-felon be admitted to practice law. Or to serve on a school board. Or to get a real estate license. Or to vote.

I am really not into blindly ignoring that there isn’t a level playing field here in America. It’s very irresponsible for us to label people as bad people when so many of us have had unfair advantages. It’s tragic that the playing field is getting even more uneven year after year in the United States, and worse, that most people don’t even realize this.

Rehabilitation is tough, it doesn’t always work, but it’s the best system there is for crime. Setting people up for failure once they commit their first crime is a very, very unhealthy way to deal with other human beings.

We cannot throw people away. Thanks to the Delancey Street Foundation for doing such great work. 

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