Homeboy Industries

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.

Homeboy Industries on Friday closed down its graffiti-removal program in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles after the shooting deaths of two employees, saying the job had become too dangerous. Father Gregory Boyle, who founded the organization after the 1992 riots, vowed to continue other job programs his organization offers to people trying to leave street gangs but said the recent violence makes graffiti-cleanup too risky.

Does Los Angeles have a conscience? Does it have a heart? If the answer to either one of those questions is yes, then we ought to share a common anguish over the crisis that threatens to cripple Homeboy Industries, the phenomenally successful gang intervention program founded 18 years ago by Father Gregory Boyle at East L.A.'s Dolores Mission. More than simply wringing hands, this county's wealthiest men and women need to step up and help put this invaluable program back on its feet.

I should have known better than to try to interview Father Gregory Boyle on his home turf, at the Homegirl Café in the Homeboy Industries building on the edge of Chinatown. It was like trying to interview Elvis in the lobby of the Flamingo Hotel. Old ladies, homeboys, artists, a City Council member -- everybody wanted to say hi to the man who, from nothing -- less than nothing, which is to say, derision and debt and doubt -- crafted what is now the biggest gang "exit" program in the country.

A graffiti-removal worker with Homeboy Industries was fatally shot while driving away from the group's Boyle Heights headquarters Tuesday, nearly six weeks after a colleague was killed while painting over tags six blocks away. Residents in the working-class neighborhood, still mourning the first death, were shocked by the second, which occurred during midday at the busy intersection of East 1st and Cummings streets, half a block from the Hollenbeck police station.

Bruce Karatz, homeboy? The former KB Home chief executive, who is to be sentenced Wednesday on three felony convictions in a stock option manipulation case, has been volunteering his services for the last six months at the Homeboy Industries gang-intervention program in Los Angeles. Karatz has helped the financially troubled agency by "finding bold and creative ways to broaden our brand, increase the revenue in our businesses and invite more stakeholders to invest," said Father Gregory Boyle, Homeboy's founder and executive director.

In parts of Prichard, Ala., children walk through broken glass and debris in bare feet. The roads, some unpaved, flood in the rain. Violence is pervasive. Young people call the community "Death Valley." Three years ago, John Eads, whose organization Light of the Village works with at-risk youths in Prichard, invited Father Greg Boyle to see for himself. Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles gang intervention and prevention program, was shocked by the poverty and despair.

Homegirl salsa is about to find a home at the deli counter of Ralphs Grocery Co. Salsa made by women in Homeboy Industries' Homegirl Cafe & Catering job training program will be sold at the chain's downtown Los Angeles store starting today. It is part of an initiative by Ralphs to help the L.A. gang-intervention agency learn how to commercialize its products. "Finding commercial outlets for our food products will allow us to generate more revenue, employ more people and do more job training, said Mary Ellen Burton, chief financial officer of Homeboy Industries Inc., which operates the Homegirl Cafe, a landscaping business and a silk screen shop as part of its efforts to steer younger residents in some of the city's toughest neighborhoods from gang life.

This should be a triumphant moment for Father Gregory Boyle. The founder of Homeboy Industries just published a memoir that has been well reviewed, and focused more attention on his decades of work using jobs to get young people out of gangs. A major supermarket wants to mass-produce Homegirl Cafe's salsa, and the priest dreams that it could become Homeboy Industries' version of Newman's Own salad dressing. The cafe is even in the running to expand into a new wing at LAX, Boyle said.