Homeboy Industries

A pioneering model of restorative justice, Homeboy departs from traditional rehabilitation programs that emphasize moral instruction and helping people make better choices. According to Father Greg Boyle (1952- ), the charismatic Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy in 1988, people affected by intergenerational cycles of poverty, violence, incarceration and despair need unconditional love, kinship and what he calls “an irresistible culture of tenderness” – not lessons about right and wrong – to reclaim their own fundamental goodness and turn their lives around.

Father Greg – affectionately called “G” and “Pops” by the “homies” with whom he works – was 34 and recently ordained when he became pastor of the Dolores Mission Church in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East LA in 1986. At the time, it was the poorest Catholic parish, with the highest concentration of gang activity, in all of Los Angeles. As Boyle forged personal relationships with gang members, he recognized what he has described as the “lethal absence of hope” they confronted every day, without prospects for employment, education or other viable alternatives to drugs, violence, crime and jail.

In 1988 Boyle launched Jobs for the Future, a program to get reforming gang members hired by local businesses. “Nothing stops a bullet like a job” was Boyle’s motto – but it quickly became clear that to catalyze real change, he would need to create the jobs himself. In 1992 Boyle launched a job training business, Homeboy Bakery, in an abandoned warehouse across the street from the church. Homeboy Silkscreen and Embroidery followed in 1994, and the social enterprise has continued to diversify ever since, adding a café, catering, farmer’s market pop-ups, electronics recycling and more.

While employment opportunities provided an essential foundation for rehabilitation, Boyle and his Homeboy colleagues soon realized that people impacted by gang life need more than a paycheck to avoid recidivism: what they need most is fundamental healing. To this end, the organization has developed an expansive set of support services – including mental health counseling, tattoo removal, legal assistance, treatment for substance use disorders, domestic violence support, anger management and parenting classes – to help clients transform their pain so they can navigate their lives effectively.

As Homeboy’s “care first, jails last” model continues to succeed where traditional criminal justice interventions have failed, it has become a blueprint for over 400 community-based programs in more than 30 U.S. states and 19 countries around the world – demonstrating that meaningful change can be achieved by welcoming people on the margins into a place of community, sanctuary and hope.

Contributor: Erin Brown