For Immediate Release: December 28, 1998

New Study Finds Personal Responsibility and Community Ties Key to Rehabilitating Welfare-Dependent Individuals

San Francisco, Ca. – A new study by the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI), a San Francisco-based think tank, says the nationally recognized Delancey Street Foundation should be used as a model for private sector welfare reform projects, which, according to the study, should replace current big government programs.

The Delancey Street Foundation is a self-help residential education center for former substance abusers and ex-convicts, which serves over 1,000 residents at its five facilities in San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Brewster, NY; San Juan Pueblo, NM; and Greensboro, NC. Those accepted to the Foundation’s program adhere to a strict regimen of responsibilities, training, and discipline in a family-like structure for a period of two to four years, and the program currently has an 85 percent graduation rate.

According to Naomi Lopez, director of health and welfare studies at PRI, "Delancey Street is proof that a social welfare policy based upon people acting through their communities works. Organizations like this out-perform the modern welfare state in their ability to address individuals’ many varied needs."

The many reasons organizations such as Delancey Street function better than the welfare state include:

• The organization teaches the values of hard work, personal responsibility, and self-sufficiency;

• The organization teaches skills needed to get through life as well as engage in long-term gainful employment;

• The organization does not create the intense adversarial relationship between donor and receiver as is often present in government-controlled welfare programs; and

• The organization’s participants are taught the relationship between work and money, and therefore, do not view financial and in-kind benefits as "entitlements."

Lopez notes that the Delancey Street model also should be adopted by the numerous local charities, religious groups, and neighborhood volunteer groups operating throughout the country. A system of free hand-outs -- such as food and shelter -- does little to give the necessary guidance to help the needy improve themselves and their condition.

"We must strengthen America’s poorer communities and their mediating structures so that a system of strong neighborhoods, families, and mutual aid institutions – such as Delancey – exist to establish and re-enforce pro-work values," said Lopez.

For a copy of the study, "Moving Social Services Back to Our Communities," please contact Jennifer Berkowitz at 415/989-0833.

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The Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility. The Institute believes these principles are best encouraged through policies that emphasize a free economy, private initiative, and limited government. By focusing on public policy issues such as health care, welfare, education, and the environment, the Institute strives to foster a better understanding of the principles of a free society among leaders in government, academia, the media, and the business community.