Homeboy Industries

Lorenzo had a hard time concealing his nervousness. Standing in front of a large room packed with Boeing employees in late March, the tall, lanky African American gang member described the arc of his life. At 22, he had spent nearly a third of his life incarcerated. Peering out of his round, black-rimmed glasses, he talked about his seven months at Homeboy Industries (the largest gang reentry program in the country), and about how he had moved quickly from the janitorial team to become an assistant in the accounting department.

Every parent knows what it's like to fail his or her child in some important way. We speak a hurtful word. We are absent at a critical moment, or we simply fail to hear what our children are telling us. The three moms I met this week at the Homegirl Café know this feeling well. It was a few days before Mother's Day and we sat down together for lunch and talked about the many sorrows they've inflicted on their children. "You make wrong choices, and your kids pay for them," Veronica Duran, a 39-year-old mother of two, told me. The personal histories of these three moms include drug abuse, homelessness and stints in prison that caused them to miss many, many of their sons' and daughters' birthdays.

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.

Imagine Los Angeles without Homeboy Industries. Imagine that the 350 or so men and women who work at Homeboy's various operations instead had no help finding jobs. Imagine that the 500 or so young people in the pipeline for work at Homeboy were suddenly deprived of that chance for gainful employment, security, support and stability. Imagine that the thousands of young men and women who every year have tattoos removed at Homeboy instead showed up for job interviews with necks and arms and shoulders boasting of a life they'd prefer to put behind them.

Imagine Los Angeles without Homeboy Industries. Imagine that the 350 or so men and women who work at Homeboy's various operations instead had no help finding jobs. Imagine that the 500 or so young people in the pipeline for work at Homeboy were suddenly deprived of that chance for gainful employment, security, support and stability. Imagine that the thousands of young men and women who every year have tattoos removed at Homeboy instead showed up for job interviews with necks and arms and shoulders boasting of a life they'd prefer to put behind them.

When he was a kid, Hector Barrios used to vandalize walls. Then, he says, he realized he had "a passion for art" and a talent he "could incorporate onto paper instead. " Alex Diaz has been in a wheelchair since he was shot in the head 13 years ago. He didn't think of himself as an artist, but, he offers, "I always had a lot I wanted to say. " Both men, former gang members in their 30s, have found new ways to express themselves through Homeboy Industries' Exit Wounds Project, a workshop and art collaboration led by painter Nancy Baker Cahill.

Election says it all Re "Voters shake things up for both parties," May 19 After months of pundits in newspapers and on TV telling us how the "tea partyers" were going to flex their muscles and take back the Senate and the House and throw out all of the Democrats, the first big "test" Tuesday proved the opposite. Yes, they could boast about their one victory in Kentucky with Rand Paul's GOP primary win, but Kentucky has already proved itself to be a conservative state.

Re "The Scars of Graffiti," editorial, Aug. 9: Father Gregory Boyle's decision to close down Homeboy Industries' graffiti-removal program is sadly understandable. Who can put young men in front of drive-by firing squads and not pull back? Young men killing young men in a nightmare game of tag is not acceptable and yet has continued for generations. This is terrorism, not some villain hiding in a cave, but a toxic stew of poverty and ignorance and fear. We have not even come close to ending the unholy war of youth against youth in our city.

With tattoos up and down his arms, a long black ponytail and an even longer criminal record, Alex Renteria isn't like most people in this building. Before this job, he had done only one kind of work: "slinging dope and stealing. " Now, he slings tamales and fresh-baked pastries at a bright diner at City Hall. Homeboy Diner, which opened this week, is the latest business venture of Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles institution that supporters say has helped thousands of gang members quit lives of crime with counseling, tattoo removal and job training.

For the last 20 years, Father Gregory Boyle has been writing -- and not writing -- the book that is his newly released memoir, "Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion" (Free Press: 220 pp., $25). The difficulty was never a lack of material. For as long as I've known him, Boyle has been amassing a stupendously rich cache of stories about the homeboys and homegirls who one way or another found their way to his doorstep. Boyle was already not writing his book when I met him in the fall of 1990.

Santa, as usual, was a no-show at the Men's Central Jail. In his place Sunday came three presumably wise men - Archbishop Jose Gomez, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and Sheriff's Capt. Ralph Ornelas, making their way down long, dimly lit rows of cellblocks to dispense Christmas cheer. At least, as much as was possible in a place where one day is pretty much like the last. "Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!" Gomez proclaimed over and over as he walked down the line of narrow, cramped cells, trailed by volunteer carolers.

In its previous lives, the sprawling Boyle Heights building now occupied by Josefina López's Casa 0101 theater was a boxing gym, a sewing factory, a Buddhist temple and a U.S. post office branch. So when the Los Angeles actor, playwright, screenwriter ("Real Women Have Curves") and novelist ("Hungry Woman in Paris") moved her company from its old location a half-block away to its new home near the corner of 1st and St. Louis streets, she hired a woman to drive out any nettlesome spirits that might be lurking.

Born into a family of gangbangers, Alicia Cadena grew up knowing only a life of crime. At 16, she left home and joined a gang in Bell Gardens. She engaged in theft, landed in jail for four months and then started selling drugs. After she lost custody of her three children, she decided to turn her life around. "I had been to different places — rehab centers and shelters," she said. Then a friend told her about Homeboy Industries, the gang intervention center run by Father Gregory Boyle.

With tattoos up and down his arms, a long black ponytail and an even longer criminal record, Alex Renteria isn't like most people in this building. Before this job, he had done only one kind of work: "slinging dope and stealing. " Now, he slings tamales and fresh-baked pastries at a bright diner at City Hall. Homeboy Diner, which opened this week, is the latest business venture of Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles institution that supporters say has helped thousands of gang members quit lives of crime with counseling, tattoo removal and job training.

Lorenzo had a hard time concealing his nervousness. Standing in front of a large room packed with Boeing employees in late March, the tall, lanky African American gang member described the arc of his life. At 22, he had spent nearly a third of his life incarcerated. Peering out of his round, black-rimmed glasses, he talked about his seven months at Homeboy Industries (the largest gang reentry program in the country), and about how he had moved quickly from the janitorial team to become an assistant in the accounting department.

It took me quite a while to get to Father Gregory Boyle's office at Homeboy Industries and finally spend some time with him. Exactly 10 years, in fact, and that was way too long. We've chatted briefly on occasion, but as I explained to him on Wednesday, he seemed to already have been spoken for when I started writing columns for The Times in 2001. Reporters and other columnists knew him as both a source and a friend, and Boyle's years-long mission to turn gang members into working taxpayers was already well-documented.

Los Angeles County supervisorsTuesday awarded Homeboy Industries a $1.3-million contract, providing critically needed funding for the gang intervention program founded two decades ago by Father Gregory Boyle. Earlier this year, crushing financial problems forced Homeboy officials to lay off most employees . The organization, which uses jobs to draw young people away from gangs , had seen a steep decline in charitable contributions since the economic downturn even as demand for its programs soared.

Yesterday, I buried Arturo. He had worked at Homeboy Industries on our graffiti-removal crew for more than a year. He was an avid reader and taught himself a native Aztec language, and last week, hours before he was gunned down, he greeted me in my office with his characteristic kind words and warm embrace. Six weeks before, I buried another one of my crew, Miguel, who was painting over a wall at the time he was shot.

When he was a kid, Hector Barrios used to vandalize walls. Then, he says, he realized he had "a passion for art" and a talent he "could incorporate onto paper instead. " Alex Diaz has been in a wheelchair since he was shot in the head 13 years ago. He didn't think of himself as an artist, but, he offers, "I always had a lot I wanted to say. " Both men, former gang members in their 30s, have found new ways to express themselves through Homeboy Industries' Exit Wounds Project, a workshop and art collaboration led by painter Nancy Baker Cahill.

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.