History
Homeboy Industries began in 1988 as a job training program (called Jobs for a Future) out of Dolores Mission Parish in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California, USA. It was created by then-pastor Greg Boyle, S.J. to offer an alternative to gang life for high-risk youth, who were living in the area with the highest concentration of gang activity in the country. In those early days, Boyle found sympathetic businesses that agreed to hire recovering gang members.
In 1992, an abandoned warehouse was converted into the first business, Homeboy Bakery, to create more opportunities for employment. The Bakery started off producing tortillas and eventually received a contract for baking bread. Eventually more businesses were added, and in 2001, Homeboy Industries became an independent non-profit.
Dolores Mission Alternative School was created to offer high school drop outs a chance for a diploma. In 2010, Learning Works became the new high school. There are currently 75 students enrolled, and in 2012 enrollment is expected to reach 105.
In October 2007, Homeboy Industries opened a new $8.5 million headquarters at the Fran and Ray Stark building, in a gang-neutral downtown location.
In addition to jobs, Homeboy Industries offers training in anger management, domestic violence, yoga, spiritual development, parenting, substance abuse, budgeting, art and other areas of self-development. In addition, they offer free mental health counseling, tattoo removal, legal services, job development and case management.
One of Homeboy's most successful programs is free tattoo removal. Young people who find that tattoos inhibit their ability to secure employment can receive treatments on site at Homeboy's center in Downtown Los Angeles, California, USA. Though tattoo removal by laser is known to be painful and takes an average of eight to ten treatments per tattoo, and in some cases up to 1 year to complete, patient retention is virtually 100%. The clinic completes about 560 treatments per month.
Homeboy Industries faced financial difficulties in 2010, but the organization has reached a strong point in 2011 and is seeing more clients than ever before. New developments in 2010 and 2011 included the launch of Homeboy Tortilla Strips and Salsa in Ralphs stores across California, and the expansion of the Homeboy social enterprises with the Homeboy Diner at City Hall and Homeboy Farmers Markets. The title of Fr. Boyle's memoir, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion reflects Father Boyle's unwavering focus in helping gang members walk a new path.
Homeboy currently employs between 200–235 high-risk, formerly gang-involved, and recently incarcerated youth in its six social enterprises and headquarters, though the free services (from tattoo removal to Baby and Me class) are utilized by more than 10,000 community members a year.
Read more about this topic: Homeboy Industries
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)