L.A.'s Homeboy Industries lays off most employees
The institution dedicated to helping gang members quit lives of crime has been unable to raise the $5 million it needs. A quarter of the staff will remain.
By Hector Becerra
Los Angeles Times
May 14, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0514-homeboy-industries-20100514,0,1924697.story
Homeboy Industries, the Los Angeles institution whose mission for more than 20 years has been to turn jobs into a recipe for saving the lives of gang members, laid off most of its employees Thursday because of crushing financial problems.
Father Gregory Boyle, who started Homeboy Industries in Boyle Heights during the height of the city's gang wars, said 300 people were laid off, including all senior staff and administrators. Boyle said he has stopped taking a paycheck.
"We let people know so they could apply for unemployment, which I'm going to do as well," he said.
Inside the organization's headquarters at Alameda and Bruno streets in Chinatown, employees — many of them former gang members — took turns embracing and consoling Boyle. Young men crowded around him and promised to come back even without pay.
"We love you, G. We'll be here tomorrow," said one. The 55-year-old priest called it a "Frank Capra moment," but he was noticeably dejected.
For two decades, Homeboy Industries has offered counseling, removed tattoos and helped gang members find jobs. Its motto: "Nothing stops a bullet like a job."
But Boyle said no amount of campaigning and fundraising could make up the roughly $5 million the organization needed to operate. He said pleas for donations had resulted in some help, but not nearly enough.
He acknowledged that the people Homeboy Industries helps have always been a hard sell, and more so when the economy is struggling.
"If these were puppies or little kids, we wouldn't be in this trouble," he said. "But they're tattooed gang members with records. So I think a lot of people love this place, but not the folks who can write the big checks, the 'Save the Hollywood sign' check."
The only employees not laid off were more than 100 who work in the organization's businesses, including its store, bakery and Homegirl Cafe. Boyle said that for the moment, the social services offered would continue, precariously, only because employees said they would keep coming. Eventually, like others left in the lurch by the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, many would need to find work elsewhere.
"We cobbled together payrolls since November. But it was not enough to save us," Boyle said. "Hope has left the building a little bit. Miracles happen. They just haven't happened for us lately."
Still, the priest emphasized to his staff that this was not the end for Homeboy Industries.
Boyle acknowledged some blunders. When he embarked on a campaign to raise money to buy the building on Alameda Street, the organization did not factor in enough money to pay for operations that serve more than 12,000 gang members and former gang members a year, he said.
The $5 million "should have been included in our capital campaign, and it wasn't," Boyle said. "And that was our error.... We sort of forgot that we were going to put a program in this place."
Homeboy Industries probably would have weathered that mistake, but then the recession struck — and the organization became busier.
"The recession happened, and everyone and his mother, every ZIP Code that has a gang had people coming here from all over the county," Boyle said.
Homeboy Industries has gotten plaudits from influential politicians, celebrities and, increasingly, high-ranking LAPD officials — though over the years, rank-and-file officers have been critical, calling Boyle an apologist for gangbangers who don't always change.
But Boyle has become an L.A. icon because of his work, with some supporters saying he should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Hector Verdugo, 35, a former gang member from Boyle Heights who became a top administrator at Homeboy Industries, said it was only natural that the priest's wards would try to comfort him when they saw him crying Thursday. Together, they prayed in the lobby and vowed to return as long as they could, even without pay.
"Everyone just said, 'Thank you, G, for bringing us this far,' " said Verdugo, a father of three. "But this isn't the end. Like Father G said, this is just a pause."
Follow-up story:
Money woes come at Boyle and Homeboy high points
Father Gregory Boyle's latest book got good reviews and his Homeboy Industries, which aims at getting people out of gangs, has a taker for mass-producing a product. But the revenue just isn't there.
By Hector Becerra
Los Angeles Times
May 15, 2010
This should be
a triumphant moment for Father Gregory Boyle.
The founder of Homeboy Industries just published a memoir that has been well
reviewed, and focused more attention on his decades of work using jobs to get
young people out of gangs.
A major supermarket wants to mass-produce Homegirl Cafe's salsa, and the priest
dreams that it could become Homeboy Industries' version of Newman's Own salad
dressing. The cafe is even in the running to expand into a new wing at LAX,
Boyle said.
But on Friday, he was struggling to keep Homeboy Industries alive.
The day before, Boyle had announced that Homeboy was laying off 300 employees,
including all senior staff and administrators, and that he had stopped
collecting a paycheck.
"If you look at the trajectory of Homeboy, it's unbelievable. And that's the
irony," the 55-year-old Boyle said Friday. "This place has never been healthier
in terms of its vision. And we have no money."
For all the accolades Homeboy Industries has garnered for its work taking gang
members off the streets and training them for jobs, generating the revenue to
pay for its services has proved increasingly difficult.
The organization actually receives little funding these days from local
government, which instead is focusing more on gang intervention programs that
focus on reducing violence among current gang members, he said.
The recession has hurt Homeboy in several ways. The private donations that
typically help balance the budget are down. And there are fewer jobs for
graduates of Homeboy's various programs.
"A lot of good workers lost their jobs," Boyle said. "So when there's an opening
for something, who are they going to pick, one of my guys who's tattooed and is
a felon, or somebody with a good work history?"
Boyle said L.A.'s dramatic drop in crime — and gang violence — may have in its
own way contributed to Homeboy's financial problems. With less gang violence, he
said, helping reformed gang members feels less urgent to some donors.
Boyle started his work when L.A.'s gang mayhem was at its worst. In the early
1990s, slayings totaled more than 2,000 in the county, twice as many as in
recent years. In 1992, L.A. alone had 1,092 killings; two years ago, that number
dropped to 382 homicides.
At first, Boyle delved into some of the most dangerous neighborhoods on the
city's Eastside, gaining a reputation as a charismatic but forceful priest with
a knack for moving gang members, even if police officers thought he just
protected them. In the early days, he even attended some gang parties.
But years ago, concerned about giving gangs too much respect, he changed his
approach. Rather than dealing directly with gang activities, Boyle began to
focus on gang members trying to leave the life. Homeboy specializes in job
training and mental health counseling, as well as tattoo removal and job
placement.
This shift, however, has hurt Homeboy's ability to get local government
anti-gang funds. Local officials in recent years have been more interested in
on-the-ground gang intervention programs that attempt to defuse dangerous gang
feuds.
"I don't believe in that approach. I used to do it. I'll never do it again,"
Boyle said. "License to operate means you will be given permission by the gang
to work in a neighborhood. Pick a reason why that's a dumb approach."
In recent years, Homeboy has expanded significantly, symbolized by the new
headquarters near Chinatown that has become a local landmark. When the recession
hit two years ago, the demand for training and counseling also increased. But at
the same time, revenue declined, and Homeboy has struggled to keep its finances
afloat. It's now serving 12,000 current and former gang members a year but has a
$5-million deficit.
Boyle said that even if someone comes forward to rescue Homeboy Industries, he
knows he may have to make some changes in the way his group does business. The
organization's own board members and funders have told him for years that
Homeboy's budget is not sustainable. It could mean even fewer employees.
The priest said that he's open to change, even if it means thinking more like a
businessman.
"I guess so. The board wants me to make changes," Boyle said. "But right now, we
need bridge money to get around this corner."
Outside his office, as TV crews and callers with surefire ways to get out of
this mess vied for Boyle's attention, Brian Moon, a tattooed 22-year-old from
Koreatown, said that he may have lost his paycheck, but not his faith in the
group, or the priest.
"There's nowhere else but up," he said. "I'm not worried."
Asked if he was as optimistic, Boyle smiled.
"I'm always more hopeful than I am optimistic," he said.
"Hope comes from the soul; optimism comes from observable evidence. And this
place is soaked with hope."
Further Update
Homeboy Industries pins hopes on chips and salsa
At Ralphs stores in Southern California, the fundraising snacks are hot sellers.
By Betty Hallock
Los Angeles Times
February 17, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-homeboy-chips-20110217,0,7678132.story
The chips are
falling into place for Homeboy Industries.
The hottest-selling snack item at 256 Ralphs deli sections across Southern
California in the first weeks of February wasn't pretzels, or cheese puffs, or
pita or bagel crisps. According to the Compton-based supermarket chain, the No.
1 seller was Homeboy Industries' tortilla chips and salsa.
Homeboy Industries, the Los Angeles nonprofit founded by Father Gregory Boyle to
help former gang members and convicts turn their lives around, launched its line
of chips and salsa at Ralphs last month as part of an effort to revive its
hard-hit finances. The high hope is that they might be the start of Homeboy's
version of Newman's Own — the company created by the late Paul Newman that
transformed salad dressing into social enterprise.
So will chips and salsa turn a community institution into a national consumer
brand that tunes grocery shoppers in to the problems of disaffected youth?
"The aim is to expand the brand so that Homeboy becomes a household name and
then a household idea," says Boyle (a Jesuit priest also affectionately known as
"Father G"), whose job-training program — started 23 years ago at Dolores
Mission parish — has helped thousands of young people from several hundred L.A.
gangs find work.
As part of the Homeboy logo puts it: "Jobs not jails" (a catchier version of the
motto, "Nothing stops a bullet like a job"). Instead of the face of a celebrity
such as Newman on the packaging, the label shows two young men with shaved heads
and goatees wearing baggy Homeboy sweatshirts and outlines a mission to reform
through work experience.
Homeboy's businesses — such as a bakery and a silkscreen company — aim to
provide jobs for its clients, but the chips and salsa are for now strictly a
foray into a new revenue stream. The salsas are based on Homegirl Café chef
Patricia "Pati" Zarate's recipes but actually are made by El Burrito Food
Products Inc. (which claims it was the first company to commercially package
fresh salsa) in City of Industry. The chips are made by Snak King, also based in
City of Industry. Homeboy receives part of the sales in an agreement with the
manufacturers, the distributor and Ralphs.
Industry analysts note the challenges of breaking into the already-crowded
about-$20-billion U.S. "salty snack" market, which is dominated by Frito-Lay and
Kraft Foods. But just getting Homeboy chips on the shelves is a coup, the result
of a collaboration with Ralphs, which waived slotting fees — what food
manufacturers sometimes pay grocery companies to carry a new product — and
donated $50,000 to the project.
Proceeds go to funding Homeboy services such as tattoo removal and counseling.
"If we can increase revenue, we could fundraise less," Boyle says. Or not at
all. "I don't know if we can ever reach that goal. But at least so we're not
white-knuckling it."
Boyle knows white-knuckling: Last year, Homeboy laid off about 330 people and
nearly shut its doors when it couldn't raise the $5 million needed to operate.
Because of donations, "things have stabilized. We've brought back senior staff,
about 100 jobs," he says. "We should have had a cushion, more money after
building" new headquarters.
In an industrial part of Chinatown, the bustling Homeboy complex — a
$12.5-million project that opened in 2007 — houses the Homegirl Café and Homeboy
Bakery, part of the organization's small conglomerate of businesses. In the same
building where Zarate turns out beef tinga tacos, linguine with jalapeńo
pesto and tofu salad for the cafe, ex-gangsters take classes such as
relationship building, solar panel installation and Homiewood: Filmmaking for
Life.
Meanwhile, Homegirl Café plans to expand to Los Angeles International Airport,
and a Homeboy General Store is slated to open this spring in City Hall downtown.
The bakery, Homeboy's original business and the employer of about 40 people,
turns out more than 3,000 breads and pastries a day — croissants, cookies,
tarts, baguettes and sourdough loaves that are sold at 17 farmers markets and
increasingly at "foodie" spots such as Intelligentsia coffee houses in Silver
Lake and Pasadena and the new Black Cat Bakery on Fairfax Avenue.
Boyle is sitting in his office at Homeboy headquarters on a recent weekday with
a printed e-mail and reads off sales numbers. "It's the first thing I announced
at my morning meeting. We're the No. 1 snack item. In the first week, we sold
8,793 units of chips and 10,287 units of salsa."
"From concept to store shelves, it took less than six months," says Bruce Karatz,
former chief executive of KB Homes who now helps Homeboy as a consultant. The
Ralphs downtown had offered the mango and morita salsas made by Homegirl
Café in the deli section beginning in 2009, but discussion of commercially
packaged chips and salsa started last June. "It just went very quickly. People
like helping us."
There are plans to offer other products and to approach Cincinnati-based Kroger
Co., which owns Ralphs, to put Homeboy goods on store shelves outside of
Southern California. "The big dream is to get Homeboy chips and salsa into the
more than 3,600 Kroger stores" in the U.S., says Kendra Doyel, vice president of
marketing at Ralphs.
The next Homeboy product? Zarate's salad dressings (think lime and cilantro,
creamy chipotle, or hibiscus and cayenne sea salt). "The more food products, the
more shelf space, the more sales, the more revenue to support Homeboy's
services," Karatz says.
If the challenge outside of Southern California might be to attract shoppers who
aren't familiar with Homeboy Industries — with zero ad dollars — that isn't a
problem in downtown Los Angeles. "You know, the climate has so changed in 23
years," Boyle says. "People took offense at working with gang members. Now
Homeboy is known in California, and people have good feelings about it."
Inside the Ralphs at 9th and Flower streets, racks of Homeboy tortilla strips
stand next to a refrigerated case filled with Homeboy salsa. Matthew Bray, a
manager at the Futon Shop, has two bags of Homeboy chips in his cart. "I saw
[Boyle] on TV and what he's doing, and I think it's amazing. At first I bought
just one bag thinking it can't be all that bad, and now I'm buying two at a
time. I'm addicted."