Father Gregory Boyle Provides Jobs — And Hope — To Gangbangers
By Curt Schleier
Investor’s Business Daily
January 8, 2018
Homeboy Industries is a Los Angeles-based youth program that, as its supercool ghetto name might suggest, has helped transform the lives of literally thousands of gangbangers since it was formed 35 years ago.
It was founded by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, to meet desperate needs in the community to which he ministered. And it all had its roots in his desire to learn Spanish.
Boyle, 63, grew up in Los Angeles, one of eight children in a large and largely observant Irish Catholic family. He had five sisters and two brothers. "My father used to say he had three hits and five misses," Boyle said in a phone interview with IBD. "He thought that was clever."
There was, he says, no pressures on him to enter the priesthood, but when it became clear that he would, "they were very supportive."
There followed a lengthy educational period involving a B.A. (Gonzaga University), three Master's degrees (including an M.A. in divinity from the Weston School of Theology and another in Sacred Theology or S.T.M. from the Jesuit School of Theology). He was ordained in 1984.
It Started With Spanish
It was his interest in Spanish that changed his path. "I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life (as a priest), so I said let me immerse myself and learn Spanish. In those days, they (the Church hierarchy) liked it when somebody wanted to do that, because it felt like the direction we were moving in," given the large Spanish-speaking population of Southern California.
Boyle was assigned to a Christian community in Cochabamba, Bolivia, a position that reoriented his priorities and his life.
"It wasn't just studying (Spanish)," he said. "I became a priest to this very poor community; it turned me inside out and ruined my life."
Of course, he said the last ironically. When he returned to the U.S. in 1986, he was slated to become the pastor for students at Santa Clara University, a decidedly cushy job 180 degrees removed from Bolivia. But his experiences in South America radically altered Boyle.
"I told my provincial superior who was assigning me to Santa Clara that I wasn't feeling it anymore. Fortunately, he needed a pastor at the poorest place we had, which was Delores Mission Church, so I went down there."
The church was located in the heavily Hispanic (coincidentally) Boyle Heights neighborhood of L.A. Boyle wrote about his experiences there in the best-selling "Tattoos of the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion" and in his newly published "Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship."
What he'd discovered in Bolivia was that working with poor people brought him closer to his own salvation. "There's something about folks at the margins," he said. "They happen to be our trustworthy guides to the original covenants, where God said, 'As I love you, you have to have special care for the widow, orphan or stranger.' It's not charity, but letting them guide us to the spirit of God. And suddenly this became a way not to save widows or orphans or the poor, but to find myself led to the gospel."
It wasn't easy. His congregants were not used to his kind of ministry. Boyle's message was of God's love. "They were used to the priests wagging their fingers at them," Boyle said. "They had become comfortable with being chewed out, being told that they were less. It's what they settled for."
'Too Stupid To Be Frightened'
He was in his early 30s when he was assigned to Delores Mission, which was located in a dangerous, high-crime neighborhood. But he was too idealistic to worry.
"I was too stupid to be frightened," Father Boyle said. "I didn't know what a gang member was. Walking the streets, police officers would come over to me and ask 'What are you doing here?' And when I'd tell them I was just walking to my parish they'd say 'I wouldn't recommend that.' "
The cops didn't trust the gang members, and in turn the gang members didn't trust the new priest. "They all thought I was a narc. But that got dispelled. I used to go to juvenile hall and visit the guys who got locked up. And in those days, we had so many wounded (from gang-related shootings), I was going to three hospitals a day. Soon these guys got out of the hospital and juvenile hall and told their friends that the priest visited me."
Boyle had no choice but to get involved with the gangs because so many bangers lived in his parish. At first he was a negotiator, trying to arrange cease-fires and peace treaties and agreements not to shoot into each other's homes.
"I had Pyrrhic victories, but then I started to see this is bad, this is giving oxygen to gangs, so I stopped doing it. The gangs aren't the Middle East. They're not Northern Ireland. Gang violence wasn't about anything other than violence."
Gangs were understandably being demonized, but there didn't seem to be any easy way to solve the problems. In the summer of 1988, the LAPD's infamous Operation Hammer, a massive raid on an apartment building that wreaked havoc on a building and produced negligible results, only hardened gang members' resolves.
"We had shootings morning, noon and night, so I was burying kids too often. So what was my choice: To bury my head in the sand or to do something. It was kind of evolving. It wasn't all at once, but it was an accumulation of things."
The seed was planted for Homeboy Industries in 1988, with a program called Jobs for the Future. That involved creating educational and employment opportunities. "It was always jobs. Nothing stops a bullet more than a job."
Critical Exposure
Boyle started by creating maintenance crews made up of rival gang members and paying them to do graffiti removal and landscaping, while reaching out to potential employers. A 1990 "60 Minutes" TV profile of the program brought in funding. But Jobs for the Future wasn't a complete success.
"This was partly because we weren't able to find enough felony-friendly employers."
But it succeeded handily in another way. During the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, "our community didn't explode, which was odd, because it was so poor. The L.A. Times wrote an article and asked me why. I told them I thought it was because we had strategically hired rival gang members (to work) together."
Shortly thereafter, the late film producer Ray Stark called. He'd read the article, was impressed with Boyle's work and told him, as relayed by Boyle, " 'I happen to have $500 million. What should I do with my money?' In retrospect," Boyle jokes, "I woefully undershot."
What he asked for was Stark's help in buying an abandoned bakery located across the street from the school he ran, and thus began Homeboy Industries. From this humble beginning, a youth-oriented mini-conglomerate has risen that serves an estimated 10,000 high-risk youths every year.
In addition to the bakery, there is now a Homegirl Cafe. Bakery and cafe items are available at about 20 farmers markets in L.A. County plus several grocery stores. Homeboy Industries also provides silk screening and embroidery services and helps recycle electronics and install solar panels.
But Homeboy provides more than just jobs. It provides legal and mental health services, a case worker to help guide gangbangers through the labyrinth to a way out of the life, and even a tattoo removal service. But the young men and women have to want to be helped.
Redemption Song
Consider Steve Alvos, 39, a gang member since he was 12, convicted of gang murder at 17 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His father was murdered before he was born, his stepdad was also sentenced to what he calls "life without," and he had an uncle he first met in prison. Then two things happened that changed his life.
The first was that Boyle entered his life tangentially. It started when the priest convinced Alvos' younger brother to return to school. The youngster not only did well, but won scholarships to Stanford, Harvard and Yale. He chose Yale and is currently participating in Teach For America. TFA is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to "enlist, develop, and mobilize as many as possible of our nation's most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence."
Boyle was also instrumental in getting Alvos' stepdad, who was dying of cancer, a compassionate release from prison. "He got out of prison at 10 in the morning and he died at home on the couch at 10 that night, but, to me, he died with dignity, not in a cell without his family."
The second important positive event in Alvos' life was a change in the law that allowed youths under 18 to be sentenced to life without parole to now be eligible for parole.
So when he was paroled five years ago, he was happily sent to Homeboy in part because he realized there were few other options. "What do you do with somebody who went in as a kid, came out as a man, has no drug problem, has no alcohol problem, just has a gang problem?"
That was five years ago. Alvos now works as a supervisor checking "on the homies that come in to make sure that they don't fall through the cracks."
His story also serves as an inspiration: "It's the best thing that ever happened in my life. It's not just the jobs. It's not just the resources. It's the culture. When you grow up in a violent community and you come to a place that's loving unconditionally, that's where the healing really comes from."
Boyle's Keys
Started Homeboy Industries, one of the nation's largest youth service organizations.
Overcame: Lack of trust from his constituents.
Lesson: Understand where people are coming from.
"Sometimes the bad behaviors of a person are not the actions of a bad person, but a person in pain. Everyone who comes here has had some unspeakable thing that's been done to them. The question then is how do we relieve that pain."
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