Father Greg Boyle says his first years as a pastor in East Los Angeles occurred during a “decade of death,” when gang violence was epidemic. In 1988, when Los Angeles was the gang capital of the world, he founded Homeboy Industries to provide job training, substance-abuse assistance, and other services to people who had quit gangs.
Gang-related homicides have dropped precipitously since Homeboy was founded, according to Los Angeles Police Department records. But the thousands of felons and former gang members Homeboy serves today still face gang violence, alongside a raft of other issues, including a lack of permanent housing and the need for mental-health assistance.
Since March, they’ve faced one more roadblock: Covid-19.
The pandemic forced Homeboy Industries to move services like 12-step recovery programs online. It also stopped serving customers at its restaurants and bakery, which train Homeboy employees in culinary skills. Its other job-training enterprises — including Homeboy Silk Screen & Embroidery, which prints T-shirts, tote bags, and other merchandise — are open with limited hours.
To date, the charity has not furloughed any of its more than 180 employees and continues to enroll people in its job-training program.
That’s largely thanks to its Feed HOPE program, which it launched in April. At Homegirl Café and Homeboy Bakery, employees like Juan Mendoza, seen here, now cook 1,500 meals a day for people in need. Homeboy employees whose pre-pandemic roles have been curtailed deliver Feed HOPE meals.
The Homeboy office has now reopened, but life there looks different. Father Boyle’s office has moved to a tent in the parking lot, and volunteers and employees keep their distance from each other. “We’re a very tactile place,” says Father Boyle. “Everybody’s hugging each other, and we can’t do that now.”
And while the pandemic has added challenges to Homeboy’s work, Father Boyle says he’s been struck by the outpouring of support the charity has received. In August, the Hilton Foundation awarded Homeboy its $2.5 million Humanitarian Prize. The charity hopes to create more opportunities for housing and employment with the Hilton money.
Individual donors, too, have pulled together to support Homeboy as it confronts Covid-19.
“We’ve all been hit by the same storm,” Father Boyle says. “Granted, some are in yachts and some are hanging onto a piece of wood in the water — but we’re all facing the same storm.”
