The thousands of former gang members that make up the congregation at Homeboy Industries owe their second chance to a man most would call a visionary. To his ‘homies,’ Father Greg Boyle is just ‘G.’
In its 26th year, Homeboy Industries is the largest gang intervention program in the nation and in the course of the year will employ as many as 280 former gang members in the businesses and other job training positions on site.
“A lot of programs offer wrap-around services, but we offer a wrap-around place,” Boyle said. “It’s a little like comparing a buffet to a Thanksgiving feast. We offer the feast. It’s relational. It’s not just about services, it’s about community. Community heals.”
Located in downtown Los Angeles, Homeboy Industries offers their clients a place to work where they can learn soft skills, like administration and customer service, and also vocational skills from solar panel installation to pastry baking or catering. Through social enterprises like Homegirl Café and Caterion, Homeboy Farmers Markets, merchandise and other business endeavors, clients are often earning their first legal employment and therefore build confidence and self esteem while providing for their families.
“Our treatment plan is born of a correct diagnosis. A treatment plan has never worked based on a wrong diagnosis and I would stake my life that our diagnosis is right – the diagnosis is a lethal absence of hope,” Boyle said. “You can’t scare anyone straight. But you can care them straight and infuse them with a sense of hope. That’s why it works, because we create a community and community trumps gang. I think the general consensus is that we can’t arrest our way out of the gang problem.”
In the 25-plus years Boyle has worked with the post-gang population in Los Angeles, he has honed in on exactly why his clients end up at the doorstep of Homeboy Industries, searching for a way out of a life of violence and hopelessness. His insight into why men and women join gangs has been paramount in successfully leading them out.
“There are three profiles of why someone joins a gang. One, they are stuck in despair and can’t imagine having any hope for a way out. Two, they are hugely traumatized and can’t transition out of the pain. Third, they are mentally ill,” he said. “Those are the three reasons, the only reasons, and there are no exceptions. At Homeboy, we are able to infuse hope, heal someone who’s been damaged and offer mental health care in a timely fashion.”
By providing alternatives to re-incarceration or a return to their former gang lives, Boyle has seen countless lives transformed through Homeboy Industries. Services like case management, substance abuse counseling, mental health care and tattoo removal
are all offered free of charge.
“Like anything we offer, it’s not us telling anyone ‘Hey, we know what your problem is.’ We listen. We listen and they tell us what would help, like having the tattoos removed from their faces. That has resulted in 46,000 laser treatments a year from our physician’s assistant and 47 volunteer doctors.”
Offering this myriad of services to Homeboy clients brings the annual operating cost to $14,700,000. If that sounds expensive, consider the alternative.
According to the independent research provided to Homeboy Industries, the average cost to keep a juvenile in detention is between $100,000 to $150,000 a year in LA County, not including mandated mental health or education services. For adults, incarceration costs range between $45,000 to $65,000 a year.
“We get our funding from wherever we can get it. This year we’re down from $3 million in government funding to $400,000,” Boyle said. “Because of national budget restrictions, eventually the government just starts saying no. But what we do actually saves them, at minimum, $10 million annually – and that’s an extremely conservative amount.”
At a rate of $20,000 to $45,000 per client, Homeboy Industries provides job-training positions and the services necessary to rehabilitate a former gang member over the course of 18 months.
While the revenue generated by Homeboy Industries’ businesses covers one-third of the operating costs, the remainder of funding must be acquired through grants and private support.
“This is an important issue for anyone in Los Angeles County. It impacts the quality of the county, but more than that, what we do is about delivering a message of kinship; we’re all connected and belong to each other,” Boyle said. “I hope to get people of a certain advantage to see those who are struggling and realize that we all belong to each other.”
It is this message of kinship that not only draws support from those outside the gang lifestyle, but also leads the Homeboy clients to redemption. Within the program, former gang members work side by side as they transition from rivals to brothers and sisters.
“Everybody here works with enemies, but we are unable to demonize people we know. As human beings, we can’t sustain enemies when we share the same vicinity,” Boyle said. “In the beginning, it used to bother me when they would agree to work together if they didn’t have to speak to each other. But you just can’t keep it up. And what happens – it always happens – is they become deeper and better friends. Always.”
As the clients learn to change their perception of themselves and each other, Boyle said he works to change the perception of those who look at the gang life from the outside.
“Everybody thinks kids are drawn and lured and attracted to gangs. But they don’t know that a kid who joins a gang is never seeking something, he is always fleeing something,” he said. “They know it will likely lead to death or prison, but they don’t care – and that’s the issue. If people knew that, it would change how we saw how much the poor have to carry. If we could learn to stand in awe of what the poor have to carry, instead of standing in judgment, it would change everything. That’s the goal.”
Father Greg Boyle has received numerous honorary degrees, awards and recognitions including the Civic Medal of Honor, the California Peace Prize, Humanitarian of the Year from Bon Appétit Magazine, and in 2011 was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. He has served on the State Commission for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, The National Youth Gang Center Board and the Attorney General’s Defending Childhood Task Force, but the heart and soul of his efforts is helping former gang members redirect their lives and become contributing members of their families and our community.
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