Everyday Heroes: Father Greg’s Homeboy Industries helps gang members ‘return to themselves’

Victor Key has been in and out of jails since he was eight.

The 43-year-old from East L.A. spent the last seven years in prison, including four years in solitary confinement, for gang-related assault before his release three months ago.

On his mother’s advice, Key walked into Father Greg Boyle’s Homeboy Industries — the largest gang intervention and re-entry program in the country — and on Friday, he got a job.

“He’s like a big savior,” said Key at nonprofit’s bustling headquarters on the edge of Chinatown.

“He helped out a lot of homies too,” Key added. “Times are rough and it’s rare when you meet someone giving you an opportunity, especially with the background I’ve had.”

At its heart, the organization founded 25 years ago by the white-bearded Jesuit priest from Boyle Heights known as Father Greg or just “G” offers at-risk youth and rival gang members the opportunity to work at its many social enterprises, such as Homeboy Bakery and Homegirl Cafe. Ultimately, it’s job training.

From Milwaukee, Wis. to Spokane, Wash., Homeboy Industries now serves as a model for almost 30 other independent programs in the country, Boyle said.

“Minimally, (Homeboy Industries) gives them a reason to get up in the morning and not engage in gang activity at night but more than that, it returns them to themselves so they are able to discover the truth of what they are — that they’re exactly what God had in mind when God made them,” Boyle, the organization’s executive director, said.

“They discover that truth at Homeboy. They become that truth. They inhabit that truth. That’s the most powerful thing in the world.”

About 12,000 at-risk and gang-involved youth and adults walk through the nonprofit’s doors each year seeking a wide range of comprehensive services. Those include education counseling, anger management, tattoo removal, therapy, parenting classes, mental health and legal services.

Homeboy’s enterprises generate about $4 million in revenue a year, Boyle said, which is only a fraction of the organization’s $14 million annual operating budget.

In 2010, Homeboy Industries had to lay off some 330 trainees in the program because they didn’t have enough funds to pay them. (Today, the organization has about 80 senior staff members and between 200 and 230 trainees.)

That’s a disheartening and crazy notion, he said, considering the valuable impact the program has on the community.

By engaging gang members in gainful employment and purposeful activity, “they’re not engaged in the things that alarm us, which is to say Homebody has a singular impact on public safety,” Boyle said.

The county gives the organization about $1 million a year but the organization relies mainly on private donors and foundations, and is constantly having to tighten its belt.

It’s a struggle “to keep our doors open, to pay our bills, meet payroll,” Boyle said. “I hate that part; that part keeps me awake.”

Meanwhile, experts say the impact of the program is clear.

The rate of youth and adults who have completed Homeboy’s 18-month program that return to prison is about 30 percent compared with the statewide average of 70 percent, said Jorja Leap, a professor at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs who is conducting a 5-year study on Homeboy Industries.

“Compared to what it costs to incarcerate youth and adults, Homeboy Industries saves both the county and the state a very large amount of money,” Leap said.

But more importantly, the program saves lives, changes people and is one of the major contributing reasons why crime is at a 40-year low in the community, she said.

“It keeps them from running the streets and committing violent crime,” Leap said.

At Homegirl Caf & Catering on Friday, where trainees learn restaurant service and culinary arts skills, Brazil Jackson, 30, of Los Angeles was busy greeting and seating customers.

Jackson, who was raised in Pasadena, said she loves serving others in her job while working on herself through Homeboy’s therapy services and relationship classes.

As for Father Greg, she said beaming, “I love him.”

“He’s like the dad you never had, or a grandfather. He embraces you. He’s there for you.”

brenda.gazzar@sgvn.com

626-657-0988