Homeboy Industries has turned helping others into a business for the past 33 years, and business is booming for them right now.

The organization, which Father Greg Boyle founded in 1988, has grown to be called the world's most extensive gang intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program. The organization assists over 8,000 people each year through its services and social enterprises.

Receiving a Lot of Money From Grants and Donations

According to the Los Angeles Journal, an increase of $8.6 million (or 40 percent) over the previous year was made from income from the organization's grants and donations in the year 2020.

The majority of those funds were generated by Homeboy's social enterprises, including Homeboy Bakery and Homegirl Catering, which generate revenue to support its social programs and give gang members and incarcerated individuals a second chance at life.

In addition to rehabilitation services, these individuals, whom the organization refers to as trainees, will be compensated through employment in order to break the generations-old issues of poverty, crime, and violence that have afflicted them.

'Purposeful Activity'

When Boyle started the organization, it was a jobs program called Jobs for a Future, and it was based out of the Dolores Mission parish in Boyle Heights.

Believing in the concept of "purposeful activity," the program opened its first business in a warehouse next to a church called "Homeboy Bakery" in 1992.

"Father Boyle realized we should 'bake bread to hire homies, not hire homies to bake bread,' meaning the emphasis is on giving them a good-quality job and allow them to kind of have a safe place, earn some money, heal and get out of gang life," CEO of Homeboy Industries Thomas Vozzo, as quoted by the LA Journal. 

Ninety-per-percent of Vozzo's trainees hasn't worked anywhere else for more than a month. Hence, the company began developing private wraparound assistance like tattoo removal and substance abuse treatment to prevent incarceration.

While trying to find a balance between assisting trainees in obtaining and developing, Homeboy formally established its 18-month rehabilitation program in 2014 by spending $5.9 million, or 29% of its 2020 expenses at the time, on specialized services such as domestic violence support, parenting classes, and legal assistance.

The report also stated that following his retirement from Aramark Corp. as executive vice president in 2011, Vozzo joined the company with 26 years of corporate experience in 2012. 

He has used for-profit strategies to expand the charitable organization, such as the 2017 acquisition of Isidore Recycling by Homeboy Electronics Recycling, which was renamed. 

A multimillion-dollar Homeboy Capital Venture Fund will be established in 2020 to invest in new businesses and create jobs for graduates of Homeboy Industries. 

"We're always sort of innovating to determine what a person needs to help move their life forward," Vozzo said. "And to meet people where they're at and help them heal and help them transform their pain — that's our guiding principle," Vozzo said, as cited in the report.

Recognition and Awards

Despite the LAPD's criticism of Boyle and Homeboy Industries for glorifying gang life and harboring criminals, other law enforcement agencies and government officials in Los Angeles have recognized and praised the organization. 

Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are just a few of the city's leaders. The former First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, visited a Homeboy Industries bakery in 2005 to learn more about the organization's work with gang-involved youth.