In 1971, an ex-felon named John Maher founded an organization in San Francisco “to turn around the lives of people in poverty, substance abusers, former felons, and others who have hit bottom, by empowering the people with the problems to become the solution.” In the course of its work, the Delancey Street Foundation established ties with scores of community, political, social welfare, and religious organizations, including Peoples Temple.
During the Temple’s height of influence in San Francisco during the mid-1970s, Jim Jones and John Maher were in frequent contact, trading strategy ideas for the goals that the two groups had in common. As a friend and political ally, Maher appeared several times at Temple services and offered personal advice to Jim Jones in Temple-recorded telephone conversations.
The Delancey Street Foundation was known to the Temple congregation and seen as important enough to Jones that he claimed that its founder wanted to emigrate eventually to the Promised Land of Jonestown, Guyana. It was the highest praise for an organization Jones could offer. It was also not true.
More than 50 years after its founding, the organization is still active.