Homeboy Industries Founder Speaks at UCLA

When Father Greg Boyle asks former gang members how they landed in a gang, he doesn’t let them get by with a superficial answer. He knows it’s not the romantic version where they say they were lured by money or power.

“No kid is seeking anything when they join a gang,” said Boyle who is the founder of the country’s largest gang intervention organization, Homeboy Industries. “They are fleeing something.”

Boyle spoke at UCLA on Thursday as part of the speaker series to address gang issues called Gangs: Stategies to Break the Cycle of Violence.

Boyle said that years ago he was giving a talk with a former gang member who had supplied a stock answer about how he had fallen into gang life. Boyle pressed him and the man suddenly stopped for a moment. He said that when he was 5-years-old his mother caught him playing with matches. She grabbed him, turned the stove on high and pressed his palm down on the burner. The next thing he remembered was waking up with his hand in the toilet, trying to get relief from the pain of the oozing blisters. The man then said that was why he joined a gang.

There is the myth that young people join gangs for a sense of belonging, but that’s nonsense, Boyle said. They join because they have no hope. They can’t see a future.

“This has never been a crime issue,” he said. “It’s been a community health issue.”

He said the profile of someone who joins a gang has one of three descriptions: mentally ill, deeply despondent, or deeply traumatized and damaged. The way to keep kids out of gangs is to work on strengthening the community so they can see a tomorrow worth living.

And that’s just what Boyle has done in the last 23 years at Homeboy Industries.

He was assigned to the Dolores Mission parish to be its new pastor at a time when it was the poorest in Los Angeles. The area around Dolores Mission included the largest public housing projects west of the Mississippi, and was home to the highest concentration of gangs in LA.

He went into the community and asked the gang members who weren’t in school whether they would go if he could find one that would take them. The gang members said yes, but the schools said no. With the help of many women in the community, Boyle started a school in the old church convent.

Then he asked them what else they needed and they said jobs. He went out looking for “felony friendly employers,” but didn’t have much luck. So they started up their own business called Homeboy Bakery, where former members of rival gangs learned to work side by side. Currently, the bakery’s goods can be found in farmers markets throughout Los Angeles.

Then came Homeboy Tortillas in Grand Central Market, Homegirl Café in Boyle Heights, their tattoo removal business, and their latest venture, selling salsa and chips in more than 265 Ralph’s supermarkets.

“No matter who you want to win (the Super Bowl),” Boyle said. “Let our salsas be the big winner.”

Homeboy, which has the motto “Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job,” has had some tough times financially, but still manages to help about 1,000 people a month who come through the door.

Rosa Crespin was one of those people. Boyle did her first communion while she was in a correctional camp. She attended the talk with a group from Homeboy and was going to get a tour of the UCLA campus. She works for Homeboy doing filing and data entry. Boyle and Homeboy have changed her life.

“He gave me hope when one else did,” she said.