The Definition of Family

Jose (center) at this year's Lo Maximo

Every morning before we start work, someone gives the "thought of the day." Jose Rodriguez had the thought today, his last day of work at Homeboy Industries before starting at Project 180 next week as a case manager.

Months ago, before Jose was interviewing for his new job, he sat down and told us his story. This is it.

"I was born and raised in South Central with no father, I never met him, and my mom was very abusive. Every time she had a man, a boyfriend, she would drop me off with relatives. I never had a good relationship with my mom. My room was always a small closet.

I started being booked and released at age 9 for assault, breaking and entering, vandalism. I was first in Juvenile Hall at age 11. Juvenile Hall was better than home: I had three meals a day and it gave me a break from my mom. It gave me a break from the abuse. She would use an extension cord. Sometimes I wore three shirts to school so no one could see the blood and scars that I had on my back.

My first use of drugs was at age 8 when I tried alcohol. It progressed to sniffing paint and glue and then crack, pcp and heroin. When I was actually jumped into a gang at age 12 it was nothing compared to the abuse I got from my mom.

I was homeless because no one wanted me around. I went from friend's house to friend's house. Incarceration was okay, it was a roof over my head. I had two daughters. I went to jail and when I came out I went deeper and deeper into my drug use. My family was homeless as a result of my drug use. My fiance left me, she could not continue to see me getting high and have me around my daughters. Nothing was more important to me than getting high.

I ended up living on skid row in downtown Los Angeles, behind a dumpster. I was on the street for two years, during which time I did not see my kids.

Five years ago, I went to my first NA meeting. My life has been good because of the choice of getting clean. I was invited to speak at an NA meeting at Homeboy. When I walked in, I saw many guys that I had done time with, got loaded with and gang banged against.

Homeboy was a place that welcomed me. I could not find work or a job and I stayed around Homeboy, coming to all the classes: parenting, anger management, and substance abuse. Someone asked me if I wanted a job, and I said yes. We went to talk to Father Greg. I didn't want to talk to Father Greg; I was resistant to meet him because of what he gives people, true love. G is too nice and I was not sure how to receive him.

G said 'my son, where have you been all my life?' the power of this moment made me feel like I was home. That is as real as it gets. He asked me if I wanted to work for him and be part of his family. I knew that I wanted to be at Homeboy and have been here ever since that moment.

Homeboy is my family, and it has taught me what a family should be. I've become a friend, a father to my daughters, and a role model because other people here have taught me how to be these things. My ultimate goal or something I would like to do is to be a case manager because I can help people. I want to show people in need that if I can do it, they can do it."

Today, Jose says he's learned that change takes real "action"- by working on himself, his fears, and his discomfort with letting people in, he began to change. From his friends at Homeboy, he learned how to be a good father. From his former enemies, he learned friendship. "I never thought that I would carry the casket of someone who used to be my enemy at his funeral."From the homies that passed while he was working here, he learned laughter and loss. Today, Jose says, he's learned that "it's not what you've got, but what you've got to give." Jose closed by sharing the definition of family that he looked up in the dictionary: "a person having kinship with another or others." Jose will always be our family, and we wish him more than luck!

Jose on his last day of work with one of his heroes, Dolores Huerta

Becoming a father

The following is written by one of our Homeboys, Armando, who is an assistant to the development department and facilitator of the "becoming fathers" class. A word of caution: some strong language and heavy content.

My name is Armando Ruiz. Like most homeboys I come from a dysfunctional family. My mother was a drug lover and my dad died when I was 6 years old from an overdose. I have 4 sister & 3 brothers. I’m the oldest son outta 8. When I was 7 years old we where taken away from my mom because she had a substance abuse problem. In that first year of foster care my siblings and I went to 8 foster homes. After that year we landed in my last foster home.

I was raised different than people think a kid should be raised. At the age of 8 I was told to stand in front of the Bronx Zoo and sell one dollar balloons. I worked an 8-10 hour day for the most part $25 a day. Life for me was different. I was also called names for my skin color. Im a brown boy living in a white house. They called me black monkey. I was raised feeling like shit because I was not white like the family in the house.

I ran away from that house many times during my teen years. I thought I could raise myself. Unfortunately I was too young in the eyes of the state. (New York State). Life during these years was hard for me. Everyday I was told to fight for the family, the same family which called me racial slurs. I was filled with so much anger I saw each fight as a chance to gain the family’s love and approval, which never happened.

During my high school years I hated the world. I was in a gang in school. I felt if the house would not love me, so the hood, homies would respect me and fear me. I always saw drug money as my way out of the hood. However that’s not what happened. The house told me I had to work for my money. They did not want to buy me any clothes. So I became a drug dealer to buy things I needed.

Life was unlike what I thought it should be. Life was not something that I enjoyed. It was something I thought god gave us to discipline us. During the few years after high school I became a drug user and alcoholic. I could not go one day without a substance in my body. Life was not fun. It was pain.

Two years I got hit by a car. I was put into a coma for a month and now have metal in my leg from my knee to a few inches above my ankle. I got hit during one of my drunken nights out. During my stay in the hospital I cried and wept for what my life have become. I asked god to help me and to grant me a kid. I told him I need a kid and I would be different than my parents. One year later I was blessed with a son, who I named Elijah Armando Ruiz.

Homeboy Industries is helping me become the father I want to become. I started working at Homeboy when my son was one month old. During that time I felt the need for a job and was in a tight spot. I thought about gang banging and dealing drugs but I would remember that night I cried in the hospital and asked god for my son.

I want my son to never go through what I when through in life. I want my son to become whatever he wants to become. I do want him to become a college grad. I want his work history to start after college, not during his elementary school years. I want him to know that his dad loves him no matter what color he is. I will always love him. I want so much for my son. I want my son simply to be happy, drug and alcohol free.classes I enrolled in at Homeboy was Baby & Me. I felt I needed the class to help me learn how to handle a kid. I then enrolled in the parenting class, simply because it was a parenting class. I did not have a parent to teach me how to do so. The classes here have helped me become a father on the path to becoming an important part of his kids life.

Armando and his son, Elijah

Now through Homeboy I teach a class called Becoming Fathers. The reason I started this class is because I saw a need for a class which will help homies like me who want to change from being just a baby daddy to a real father. I'm not saying I know it all. I feel it is hard for me (a person that really wants to change) and maybe its harder for other homies. I feel I can help other homies make that change in their life. Most homies come from fatherless homes and they don’t want their home to be like that. Fatherless kids find support in the streets doing unlawful things.

Homeboy Industries has helped me more then I can say. I don’t know what else to say. Thank you Father G (G DOGG) and Homeboy Industries.

Summer and family

It's difficult to understand what it takes to leave a gang. Deciding to walk away from a lifestyle that leads only to violence should be easy, we think, but we may forget that this also means leaving the friends, family, even the neighborhood that you've always known. Herein lies what may be the hardest task facing those who come to Homeboy Industries: divorcing themselves from the people and places that have, until now, been home.

This fundamental shift, "having to throw out the phonebook," as one homegirl put it, is why the community of kinship at Homeboy is so important. Many of our employees spend time together on the weekends, or bring their kids to the events that work makes available (we're always thrilled when baseball tickets show up) because it's simply not safe for them to be around their old friends or family. For other homies, free time consists of not leaving the house all too much.

Last Friday, Homeboy held our 9th annual family picnic- a frenetic, happy day in the park right behind Dodger Stadium. It was a few hours for our employees to have a real gathering, a safe congregation of young people and their children, a snapshot of rest and fun in the steady, slow work toward a better life.

Homeboy Diner at LA City Hall: a new business for second chances

Today was one of celebration at Homeboy; after many months of wrangling permits, testing espresso machines, and perfecting pizza at lunchtime in the bakery, we opened the Homeboy Diner at City Hall with a bang. Well, perhaps not a bang, but a loaf of bread.


The Homeboy Diner is only a closet-sized, bright green lunchtime spot, but to us it represents much more: the continuing growth and stability of an organization that seeks to provide hope to those for whom hope is foreign, and the opportunity for formerly gang-involved young people to show the world (or at least the mayor's office staff) that true change comes one day at a time, starting with a job.

Check out excerpts from the press conference, featuring our "homies" Kyle and Jennifer, Father Greg, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Jesse Bonderman of the Cornerstone Project. Happy dining!

Till the wheels fall off

This is a post about the LA Marathon. This is a post about a lot more than the LA Marathon. Father Greg likes to say, “till the wheels fall off.” Almost exactly this time last year, the wheels of Homeboy Industries fell off. With the economy sighing in desperation, foundation funding began to slowly retreat, government funds we were promised never quite showed up and… we kept hiring. The budget reached a point of crisis, and in late May 2010, all 330 employees in our headquarters were told that they were no longer employed. Here’s the amazing part. The next day, everyone showed up for work.

A year later so much has changed. Responding to the news of Homeboy’s stumble, the Los Angeles community (and far beyond) rallied to keep us going, and we were gently lifted up by the generosity of so many who know what important work goes on here. Homeboy Industries is now financially stable (though our needs for funding, like the needs of our clients, are always growing!), and we have more and more exciting developments to celebrate and look forward to. The Homeboy Bakery is now in Farmers’ Markets across Los Angeles, the Homegirl Café will be opening a new Homeboy Diner in City Hall and another at LAX, Homeboy chips & salsa are in more than 250 Ralphs stores in Southern California, and our clients continue to make incredible, meaningful progress at Homeboy and beyond.

Our chips and salsa, courtesy of the Food Librarian

In March, a team of homies were slated to run the LA Marathon, a tradition we’ve had for several years. It’s a way for our young clients to expend a little positive energy on the streets. Every homie I asked about it simply said “I wanted to accomplish something,” or “I’ve never finished anything in my life- I wanted to finish something I could be proud of.” One member of the Homeboy community is Alex, who was not a gang member but was hit in the head by a stray bullet in early adolescence and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Alex wanted to be a part of the marathon team, too, and the runners planned to take shifts pushing him throughout the 26.2 miles- Alex was to walk the last 200 yards in honor of the friends we have lost this year.

The Team

The day of the marathon, it poured. Not Los Angeles fog-sprinkling, but sheets of cold water slapping against sidewalk. Our Homeboys started the race anyway, covered in plastic bags. A few miles in, one of Alex’s wheels started to wear down. At seven miles, the rubber casing flew off. The Homeboys continued, riding on rim. The spokes crumpled, they straightened them- fifteen times. Eventually, the chair gave out- the wheel fell off. Our job developer James, who stayed behind with Alex instead of finishing the race, is not deterred- “Next year we’re gonna get a better chair,” he said, “and kick some serious butt.”

The little wheel that could

“It’s not over!”

All of this speaks to something profound about Homeboy Industries; from the ashes, this place finds success. From violence, abuse, addiction: hope. The wheels fall off, but we keep going.