From Gangs to Community: Father Greg Boyle on Kinship

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

I'm Cynthia Marks and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation established by my late dear husband, Doctor Bernard Bail.. Welcome to And Now Love. Wow. So today we have Father Greg Boyle with us, the founder of Homeboy Industries. Thank you for being here. And you've done this 1,000,005 times or maybe 250. I don't know, but it's enough. And you have to tell the same story over and over again. But just tell us quickly about the origins of this fabulous organization. Okay. It's great to be with you, Cynthia. So homeboy was born when I was pastor of the poorest parish in the city, Dolores Mission, in the middle of two public housing projects.

We had eight gangs at war with each other. Largest concentration of gang activity in the city was there. And so I started to bury kids as a priest. 1988 I've buried 263 since then. Not all from that parish, but I know a lot of gang members, so I get asked to do this. So we started a school jobs program, and then we couldn't find enough felony friendly employers. So we we created things. And now we have 16 social enterprises, 10,000 people a year walk through our doors. We have 800 people who work there. 800 people work there. Yeah. And our most of those people, previous gang associates.

Yeah. So I mean, 500 of those are what we call trainees. And they're all gang members, but 70% of our senior staff, the other 300 core and senior staff are they've gone through the program. Wow. Wow. And so 10,000 people a year. How do people get to your front door? Is it mandated by the courts? Are they self-motivated? Yeah. We don't. We're starting to get a little bit of court saying instead of sentencing you, I'd like you to go to homeboy. We don't really fully know how we feel about that, you know, because we like the idea of we don't coax or coerce or recruit.

You have to just everybody 120,000 gang members in L.A. County. Every single one knows where we are and what we do. So ready when you are. So walk through the door. So fortunately, it's not a lot of judges who are saying this, but mainly people freely walk through the door. They go through the process of drug test, orientation, interview, and then we bring them in for 18 months. So that desire to come to homeboys means that they are now going to have to face. Let's say, if they have addiction issues, addiction issues. Does that knock a lot of people out because that's just too big of a mountain to climb?

No, I don't think it knocks them out. I mean, if we're always drug testing. So if we go, whoa, you know, meth, let's let's take a out. We can send you to a place. Will pay for it. We'll hold your spot. And sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say hell no. So then we'll come back when you're ready. We got you. And of all these gang members or other individuals who are looking for this kind of help. Well, or are not looking for this kind of help. What sort of percentage do you think you actually get to help move forward? Well, yeah. You know, it's a little bit like AA or 12 step or and a, you know, people say, well does it work?

And they'll always say, of course it works 100%. It works if you work it. So you are reliant on them. We I can't want it more than that guy. So you're reliant on them to surrender to their own healing. So every single one who walks through the door comes barricaded behind a wall of shame and disgrace. And the only thing that can scale that wall is tenderness. And so. So they come and they experience a place where they feel safe, which is essential. A place where they feel seen also essential, and then a place where they can feel cherished, which is kind of the secret sauce, where they where they feel like, oh, wow, now I now I can move to the joy of cherishing myself and others.

So if the traumatized are likely to cause trauma, then it has to be equally true as your organization starts. And it's true that a cherished person's going to be able to find their way. And that's kind of the key. So when you say cherish is that equal to love. Yeah we say cherished only because sometimes love becomes people. Their eyes glaze over. And so you use other ways cherished. We'll say tenderness is the highest form of spiritual maturity because then it's, it's, connective tissue. It's exquisitely mutual. It's really relational wholeness.

It's it's individuals engaging in a kind of depth of care for each other. That's extraordinary, because sometimes, you know, we say love, and it's just a way of putting a contour on it so that people can feel, oh, okay, I get what that is. Is that because the word love has been watered down to maybe. Do you think I. Kind of do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's love never fails. Love is the answer. All these things are absolutely true. And and we live by it. And then every once in a while you can throw a little thing and like tender or the only non delusional response to everything is kindness.

Then you go, Okay. Now I'm getting that. It's a, it's a way of ensuring that there is no daylight that separates us, that we're in each other's presence, and we're able to inhabit our own dignity and nobility with each other. And also it gets at that the service notion. That's kind of says service provider, service recipient. We don't want that either, because there's distance in that. So we want there to be that. There is no daylight that separates us. When you started this industry, Homeboy Industries, did you have that notion there's no daylight between us.

Did you know that going in? No, I didn't know anything going in. Probably. You know, I mean, part of the thing is it's more of a movement, you know, just as you are part of a movement and, you know, you wouldn't want to be pigeonholed to even an institution or organization. You're trying to foster nurture into being a movement where people go, yes, this is where I think we ought to go. In fact, I think we might be making progress if we embrace this. You know, because people would kind of like things to move forward in. And and we're stuck in the mud sometimes because we, we put conditions on our love and we put, distance between us.

And so at homeboy, we embrace these principles that everybody's unshakable good. No exceptions. And we belong to each other, no exceptions. And it seems to be the only things that that allows us to roll up our sleeves and say, okay, well, then nothing's holding me back. There aren't good people, bad people. There are just broken people. Wounded people. Okay, roll up your sleeves and apply love as as you have pronounced. And it's a thing that you go, oh yeah, okay. But here's the thing. Maybe you'll agree. We've lost our confidence in love, and maybe that has that too.

I was just thinking with the word adding contours to it because we've lost confidence in it. I was on a podcast, I said, love never fails and the guy scoffed and he said, well, father, our I think our listeners are going to think that you're naive. You know, I said, well, I don't know, I think we've lost confidence in love. And B name a time when love actually didn't work, when it failed. And then you can talk about things and you go, oh no, no, no, no. That's we abandoned love at some point in that moment. But if we were steadfast and if we continued to love and embraced it fully, it's always worked.

You know, I think. I think so too. And again, I think it is a matter of us getting down to the very kernel of our own selves and finding out that we, as you say, we're not either good or bad. We're just a kernel of love that needs to grow into. That's right. A whole bowl of popcorn. Yeah. And and that's I think that's a possibility for all of us. But it's a huge amount of work. Yeah, it's a huge part. Of it has to do with the notion of goodness. And when a homie comes into our doors and says, I just want to be a better person, I will stop. You couldn't be one bit better.

Who you are is exactly right. It's only unshakable goodness. Now let's try to get access to that goodness so you can live your true self and loving. How do you get there? Sometimes there are things that compromise your ability to access your goodness, because once you know your goodness, then you know love is your home. And once you know that love is your home, but you're never going to be homesick, you know, it's kind of how you will live and nothing can touch you. Not death, not rejection, because you know your engine is loving. It's not about don't give me a return on this.

No, it's just love, right? It's just love. And and that finding the true self in loving is kind of our goal at homeboy. Healing will end in the graveyard for everybody. But. But we do 18 months because we think if you surrender to 18 months, the kind of a fun, foundational, surrendering to your own healing, knowing that healing will go on forever. But it's foundational. It's like, I'm feeling sturdy and resilient, and it's because I've been cherished here at this place. And now, boy, I find joy in being that for my kids and for the stranger and and for the other people here and now.

Okay, now I can leave. It's hard because we're more home than home. It's hard for them to leave. And I appreciate that, but they leave. Other people are going to come in, you know. So and. But I would imagine that most of these people that leave continue to have some kind of connection. Or totally are always that's part of it. It's the relationship that heals. So, you know, you want to maintain people always are coming back. And are they often coming back more in a helping mode than needing help? Yeah, maybe. Maybe they are a lot of them. So I just come back to get my fix, you know, of people noticing them, knowing their name, hugging them on their day off and so it's kind of a glorious thing.

You started out at this at Dolores Mission, and when you were assigned that post, did you know where you were going, what you were up against? Not really. I spoke Spanish and it was poor, and I had been in Bolivia, and I was supposed to go someplace else to a university. And I begged my provincial, my boss, please send me to a place where I can speak Spanish, and they're poor. And he needed a pastor. And so it was fortuitous. And he didn't know what he was going to do. And he said, please, can you go to Boyle Heights? And I'm in. I just fell in love and I've been there for 40 years now.

I only pastor for six years. So but I go say mass there I did yesterday, you know, but I also I'm in detention facilities as a priest. But because I know a lot of people and gang members in particular, you know, every Saturday is, baptisms or whatever it is, weddings. Jeez, Louise, I don't know how you get it all done. Yeah, barely. So the idea of this kinship, this radical kinship, is just what we're describing. It's really seeing each other, knowing each other. We're all on the same plane. Are there moments where that doesn't go as it should that have to be sorted out?

That that kinship is hard to come by. So, for example, you mentioned a moment ago that when someone comes in and said, you know, I, I'm a bad person, I did these really bad things. And you're saying, no, no, you're you couldn't be any better than you are. It seems like that might be hard for a lot of people to accept. Oh, yeah. I think it's hard for human beings to accept it. But you start to get to a place where you say, what does behavior have to do with goodness? It actually doesn't, you know? So when somebody will start a fight, which we have on occasion and the homies are great about this, they always say, find the thorn underneath.

So they want to get beyond judgment. They want to move. Lean in with curiosity. I wonder what this is about. Why did he fight that guy? It's not about conflict, because it's always about something else. And you go, oh, his mom has pancreatic cancer and she's got six months to live, and he's trying to figure that out. Oh, we got it, you know. But you can talk about that because they know that behavior is a language. And then we go, well what language is that behavior? Speaking. But if we got derailed every time somebody shouted at somebody or swung at somebody.

You'd be nowhere. Yeah. Because we have to. We go, we understand. We're we're trauma informed. And so we're dealing with people who have who have been through horrific things. So how do we stand in awe at what they've had to carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it? And so and they're adept in fact, they've taught me how to do this, you. Know, those experiences that your homies have, the trauma that they've had to carry when it comes forward is so pointed. It's so clear that some of these big, scary things that these people had to deal with would affect them.

It can't help but affect them. Yeah, make them into something other than what they were meant to be. Yeah. And it's an issue that falls across all of us in that we all carry something with us that helps mold us or take us away from what we were meant to be. Yeah, and the thorn underneath is the perfect way to put it. I think, you know, what is that thing that is troubling Jimmy over there? Why is Jimmy acting this out this way? And why can't I look at myself and say, wow, am I a why am I feeling so anxious about this thing? You know, that's very mild mannered in comparison to the people you help.

But if we could all get to the thorns that each of us has within ourselves and each other, we can get to having some compassion and empathy for each other. Yeah. And with our population, there are layers of trauma. So you so they can the most immediate layer is, you know, I've just spent 20 years in prison. Somebody will say, and then the next layer is, what was it like when you were on the street and how being shot at and sleeping in an abandoned house. And there was another layer. And then the homie was telling me this the other day and they said, and then there was my childhood trauma, you know, my father, heroin addict, leaving me as a kid in this trap house and being sexually abused there as a five year old.

And so he told me all this and, and he said, I've realized that my childhood trauma couldn't breathe because of the other layers of prison trauma on the streets. Trauma, childhood trauma, which I thought was a very good image. My my childhood trauma couldn't breathe. Yeah. And so he finally got to it and for the first time, telling me I've known him for many years and hear him say it in front of a group of a roomful of strangers. And he said, yeah. And, and and I realized I was sexually abused. My father would leave me there being babysat by other heroin addicts.

And and this is what happened to me. But he realized that that trauma couldn't breathe under the weight of the other layers. So he's excavating. He's getting there. And it's it's glorious to see, even for all the pain of it. Yeah. But I would imagine too. And or maybe it's part and parcel that there is some amount of shame associated with that. Like I must have been. I caused this, you know that. Yeah. And that's, that's a huge thing to undo. I caused this yeah. He's pretty advanced in his own journey because he's works with young folks in our organization.

And but he can also know how to help them and be present to them. And, and that allows him to reflect on his own experience and to be merciful with his five year old self that he perhaps had done exactly that, blamed himself. Yeah. Well, again, that's a good lesson for all of us because we we carry so much, keep it under our hats. We don't know if we speak. It will be considered wrong or bad or something to be ashamed of. So I appreciate that people are being so bold and strong and bringing some of these things forward. It only helps other people do the same, right?

Yeah. So what about God in all this? Do your homies typically believe in a God the way you believe in a god? Well, I mean, we have quite the continuum of faith adherents, you know? I mean, we have atheists and we have Muslims and Buddhists and every variety of Christian. And so we don't really lead with that, you know, because there's always that sense, you know, like I remember in the Bush administration, the second Bush administration, where they had kind of a faith based something or other department, and they came to visit homeboy, and they asked me, what do you do here?

And I spent 20 minutes telling them about tattoo removal and therapy and our businesses. And it's a culture where people feel seen and cherished. And I went on and on legal services, whatever it was, curriculum things. So I took 20 minutes doing that, and then they kind of made a face. One guy said, yeah, but what about the spiritual part? So I'm always kind of pushes my button. So I said, oh, that's funny. I, I thought I'd just spent the last 20 minutes talking about the spiritual part, because I wanted to make the point that there is no kind of dichotomy that says, now we're going to talk about the spiritual part because it's all restorative.

It's all the kinship of God. It's all every single thing. So it's you preach the gospel always. Sometimes you use words, but it's rare that you use words. The homies will say, usually before a fight. Don't talk about it. Be about it. That means don't argue with me. Let's start fighting. That's kind of what that is. But it means really, on another level. Don't talk about God. Be about it. To live as though the truth were true and putting first things recognizably first and and taking seriously the things that, if you will, what Jesus took seriously about inclusion and nonviolence and unconditional loving kindness and compassionate acceptance.

So, oh, okay, now I know what you're about. So you want to live from that place that is so clear and loud. Well, as you were describing all of the things that you do at home, boys, I was thinking to myself, I guess that is God. Absolutely. And it's a difficult thing to think, you know, somebody might say, do you believe in God? In a way, it reminds me a little bit of this conversation we were having about love. Is it a little watered down? Yeah, it's kind of hackneyed, almost. You know, where we need new language? Because I had somebody in my office saying, yeah, I don't.

He just had a baby. And he said, I'd like you to, I don't know, blessed, I guess, but not baptize it. And I thought, yeah, it's okay. Whatever you want to do, I don't care. But it's kind of they don't cosign on a lot of it and that's fine too. And people come to it how they will and when they will. And what difference does it make? I mean, it's none of it's about admission into heaven. Well, and Bernard, my husband and I used to talk about the idea of God, the idea of love, of empathy, etc., etc. and I would say, I don't know, I'm just I don't know if I believe in God.

And he would look at me almost like, who cares? It doesn't matter what you say out loud and it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't. I and I believe that I'm a Jesuit priest, you know, but I also think there's a notion of God. And if we if you're going to go down that route, the problem comes if your God is too puny because then you don't have any choice except to be puny in the world. And so what you're trying to get at if if that's language that's meaningful to say, the I believe the God of love, a married by star who's a mystic and translates mystics.

She says, once you know the God of love, you fire all the other gods. And that's a good, helpful thing, because that kind of that's what mature in faith looks like. You go, yeah, I don't believe in that. God. Well, what about the wrath of God? It's on page 49. I don't believe in it. How can you not believe in it? It's on page 49. I go, I don't know, why. Don't you know the God of love? You don't believe in that God. It's so confusing, though, because you hear still today, so often. Well, they're God fearing people. Yeah. What does that mean? Well, fearing was supposed to mean in awe and oh my gosh, you're great.

It wasn't supposed to mean you're afraid of God. It just means you're in awe of God. But it's not very helpful language because you hear God fearing and it means I'm fearful. Yeah, and I haven't read the Bible, but is there not a lot of discussion in the Bible about evil things and slaying this? Or. I mean, yeah, how do we interpret it that? Yeah. Well, you use a mystical filter, I always say where you kind of. And Jesus did that. He did the, you know, thing of the the blind will see and the deaf will hear in the prisoners will be the captive will be set free, and the poor will have the good news preached to them.

And then there's a kind of a last line from Isaiah that's about a wrathful God. And Jesus doesn't quote it. And you can presume that he didn't because he didn't believe it. I believe all this other stuff about freedom and liberty and, and, and blind people seeing and deaf people hearing and the poor having the good news proclaimed to them, I believe all that. I don't believe this last line. I presume that's why he because it's it's in a set and when you go, oh, what about this. He didn't include that when he quoted it. I love that because then I go, yeah, he filtered as we would.

I mean, like so Jesus looks at a guy having seizures and he and the crowd all think he's possessed by a demon. Well, no, he has epilepsy. But I don't expect Jesus to know from epilepsy. He just doesn't know about it. And and nobody in their audience also knew it, you know, now, here's a pill that'll control your seizures, you know, but I that's a good parallel for me because sometimes people see demons. And demonizing is the opposite of God, because that's exactly how God doesn't see. And we're at a time in our country where people hate each other because they hold different views or something.

But again, the hate even is is not the right language because it's really about health. It's about are we whole? Are we walking each other home to wellness? And I've been thinking about that a lot since I read your most recent book. And even just in my day to day walking around and and seeing someone who I might have just immediately been frightened by, or immediately said to myself, oh, they can't be a nice person. Look at that giant scowl on their face and look at their terrible gait. Whatever it is, whatever it is. And I've just said, take that out of your head.

You know, just look at that person differently and feel differently about them, or smile or say hi or how are you? And that just changes the whole scenario. It turns it upside down. Something you talked about earlier about stigmatizing because that that's intriguing to me, because I think, like Vivek Murthy, who was the Surgeon general when he left office, he said mental health is the defining health issue of our time, and I agree with them. So if you look at Bondi Beach and Sydney and if you look at Brown University and you look at the tragic murder of Rob and Michelle Reiner, and if you look at the the National Guard troops being shot, if you look at all of those, you say, well, what are they all have in common?

Well, nobody healthy has ever done any of those things. That's not a stigma that because that's the problem when we have behavior and goodness somehow linked in, they aren't. There's a young woman who who will get high on meth and not take her meds. And so she kicks in our front glass window, shatters it, and some of the homies go, My God, I can't believe she did that. How disrespectful to you. And you've helped her so much. I know you do know she's mentally ill right? You know it's not. That's not a stigma in my mind. That's not a stigma any more that I take it, you know, a med for my blood pressure.

And he needs to take something to lift his boat so he doesn't take water because of mental anguish. What's the difference between these two pills? Really? Right there. Should one be judged more than the other? That's my. Because I once there was the guy, you remember the guy who shot from the Vegas hotel and killed all those people in the concert. And then I was invited to speak to a psychiatrist at a hotel ballroom. And I was talking about that, about how they the police closed the case and the man was had been killed. But they said, we we just couldn't find a motive.

And I got a motive. Well, imagine a motive for gunning down whatever it was. It was a it was the highest, I think, mass killing. Imagine the motive. What? He lost his job. Are you serious? His wife left. Him. His wife left him for his best friend. It you can't imagine a motive that would make any sense of killing all these people with. And, and then they weren't furious with me. And during the question and answer period, they went, oh, my God, you're stigmatizing the mentally ill. And I go, am I? I don't think so. I think sensible adults in the room want to figure out how do we address this or this doesn't happen.

But if you just say, don't blame mentally ill people, I go, first of all, blame. What are you talking about? Blame? I don't have any stigma on it. For me, it's not a moral judgment, it's a health assessment. And I think that's that advances the dialog rather than I mean, all our folks have real mental health and anguish issues, and we help them and we say recovery is going to help. And and you love people into knowing the truth of who they are. And yes, you have we have three psychiatrists who work at home, boy. And so, yeah, so take a pill if it lifts your boat.

But how does someone do something like this man did in Las Vegas without being mentally ill? How? And I don't get it. And would someone somehow feel like the case was better closed if you were to say, oh yeah, he lost his job, does that does that somehow make. I couldn't find the a file somewhere in a psychiatrist office that had this man's name on it. And you go, oh, does that mean he did not struggle with mental you nobody healthy does this. Or even if you say ISIS motivated you go, what's the difference between ISIS and saying, you know, I was in love with Jodie Foster?

You go there. They're both indicators that this is about health. It's not a hate crime, it's about health. Nobody healthy is an anti-Semite. Nobody healthy is a racist or a misogynist or a homophobe. These these are health assessments. They're perfectly fine to make. If you believe everybody's unshakable. We good and we belong to each other, then make health assessments. I'm concerned about you. You know I want the best. Then we become well wishers and we can start to address the things that that lead to somebody shooting a bunch of people on a beach in Sydney, or all the horrible things that happen.

Yes. And look at our prison system. Yeah. I was just the other day at the, for graduation at Twin Towers Jail. And they have a beautiful program. It's a step down program. And it's dealing with the 5000 mentally ill in our jails, making L.A. County Jail the largest mental institution in the world. On the planet is our jail system. And how can that be? Well, run. Yeah, but they're doing this thing that's really exciting. You should go and and observe it. Okay. Yeah, because it's really magnificent. But it's it's they take healthy, long term people who are fighting long cases, and they train them as mental health assistants.

And they put them in a module with 30 really mentally ill people who are in many cases, not even competent to stand trial. And they're there to because to protect the community and themselves and these mental health assistants, you know, our okay, tonight is karaoke night and they're getting all these people together. Hey, did you brush your teeth? And these are inmates usually two per module who are caring. And they even called it we call it incarceration. Yeah. It was beautiful. I really got it was so moving to watch because I thought, well, that's what we want to be a society.

You know, you had to take them and I don't you don't have to. I have to stop the woman who's kicking in my front, you know, for her own protection and everybody else's, but I don't you don't need to punish her. When will we stop punishing wound and and instead heal it? Well, I'm quite surprised by what you're describing that's happening over there. Oh, yeah? Who came up with this? An inmate, a guy who was on death row came back to L.A.. The L.A. times did a whole feature on him, and he's fighting a case, and he's going. He's never going to leave prison, but he's in LA fighting a case.

But he started this thing. What if we were to have pier, not guards, training guards to do this, but training inmates who are going to be here for a little while? I mean, it it was extraordinary. I'd heard about it, I'd read about it. But to go to this graduation and and to see, you know, the inmates who are mentally challenged get up and say, I don't hear voices anymore. It's because these mental health assistants are getting them to take their meds. And and they're in an environment where people know their name and, and love becomes their modality.

That's how they are present to each other. It's what an amazing guy. It's a marvelous. Yeah, well, it's very similar to what you guys are doing. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. You know, I think it's, Giving people a place to feel loved. Makes a world of difference. You may need other things. You may need a med here, or you may need to make sure you don't get high or. But here's a job to pay your bills. You need other things. But this is pretty foundational, I think. So for someone like the woman who kicked in the storefront. Yeah. What happens to her?

You, you. She's done something. She's obviously dealing with a mental health issue, and it doesn't mean that she's bad. She's just had this mental health issue that helped her get to this place where she created this havoc. Do you? She gets sent someplace where she can get some additional care. Yeah. That's hard right now she's in, in jail, but but this happened some years ago, so she's been in and out, and she'll come back to us. She always. This is more home than home. And we hug her and we love her. But we also know that when she's started, we think she's getting high again.

You know, I think she stopped taking her meds because then it builds and you go and all of a sudden we're off to the races and we can't have her in there because she's triggering people. But while she's doing the things that keep her healthy, she's come on in. But we hate to kind of put people on a no fly list, but we do it. And the no fly list means that unfortunately, they're out on their. Own just for a period of time. We can't have you come in like a guy yesterday who's getting high. We sent him to rehab. He left. I said, we can't have you back here working.

And because you clearly have a meth addiction. And so yesterday they came to me and they they mentioned his name and said he stole, you know, those scooters. Yeah, but it was a scooter that was owned by somebody there, you know, who was actually just coming to get help. And he took off with the scooter. So then, you know, we go, okay, he's going to be on a no fly list for the moment that we can't have them come in the building. We'll come outside. We're always going to help them, but we want them to know that, you know, this is really unacceptable and you need help.

This is just reminding us how much help you need. That must be hard, though, to say, hey, you know, buddy, no fly list and have them still know or trust that there's love. Yeah, it's still it's not as hard as it feels. I mean, it's it's not about tough love. It's about clear love. We're very clear with them. We know that this behavior has to do with the fact that he's refusing to go into recovery. We also know that he has kind of a complex dual diagnosis, if you will. You know, we point him through the to the right direction. But we never say, you know, you can't be anywhere near here because they do come by.

But we all we want to say that right now because of you're not taking care of yourself. We can't have you go in there because people are triggered so easily by your violence or your tone or your raising your voice, or. And then we'll give him a sandwich or something. But it's like you call us, you let us know when you're ready to go to rehab. Are there a fair amount of individuals who are in need of help that is beyond what homeboys can give them? That's a great question because we we talk all the time about beyond our scope and occasionally there's somebody.

But even the main thing with that, I think, is you don't want a critical mass of folks who are beyond our scope. You can have a couple in the same way. We have many, many wheelchair brain injury guys who have a hard time walking or speaking. You know, you couldn't have. You have to have a balance switch to the brain injury ones because we are, you know, the beneficiaries of them being there with us. And they are too, because they have a reason to get up in the morning and a place to and we have them help in the, in the kitchen or whatever. There's one guy in particular who you, you know, you can't understand what he's saying because he just incredible injuries to the brain.

But he gets a paycheck, you know. Well he also has SSI but he gets enough to be able to. But he has a place to go. But the the the beyond our scope is I it's good to have them there because that helps. It trains people to say yeah he he carries more than the rest of us, you know, in terms of anguish and schizophrenia or a personality disorder or so. How do you keep that balance? Well, very carefully, you know, because because you don't want it to become it's a little bit like gangs. You know, you kind of go, we have too many guys from this gang right now.

So we try to if somebody comes in and understandably, they say they tell their friends, their friends couple of, oh, we can't have ten guys from this gang because the guys from this gang are going to feel. Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed or intimidated or nervous about being there. So we just it's a way of balancing and we and we, you know, do a lot of things. Then that person over to that business I see. So in admitting it. And giving it out. You don't just keep them on the outs, you help them. You know, they find another method. Exactly right. Yeah.

You've been doing this for many, many years and you've had a ton of success. Or is there something that you wish you would have done differently, or some information that you wish you would have had earlier on? Oh yeah, I mean, tons of things. I mean, in the early days, mainly because those eight gangs and its members, all the members lived in my parish in the housing projects. It wasn't like there was a commuter thing like you have now. Somebody lives in Montebello and they come to Boyle Heights to kick it with their homies. We didn't have that.

They were indigenous. They lived right there. And so then I because I didn't know then that gang violence is about a lethal absence of hope. And it's not about it's not the Middle East or Northern Ireland, it's not sides. And oh, what if we set them down and they worked out their conflict? So there's violence and gang violence, but there's no conflict. It's not about anything. I learned that late. And then I learned bringing gangs together. Let's work this out. Supplies oxygen to gangs and that's not a good thing. And we also learned I think I learned that it serves the cohesion of the gang.

And that's not a good thing. So to sit down, rival gang members and have them have a discussion, they are only going to end up. Well, you did. No, but it's like, what would they discuss? I, we would like to practice our religion freely. What we would like our homeland back. There's nothing there. All the same language that says about the fact that they can't imagine a future for themselves. So they shoot at mirror images of themselves, and then you kind of go, oh, wait a minute, what if we infused hope to kids for whom hope is foreign? Watch what happens to the to the violence.

Once you do that, you go, oh, the violence was about something else. That was my discovery. So I always say, I don't regret that I did that and I'd never do it again. That's kind of how I live in that thing. Yeah, I guess that's how we should look at all of our lessons. Yeah. Otherwise it's. Yeah. And then. So that's why we say now we work with gang members and not gang, whereas in the city they have a lot of programs where they do that kind of negotiating. And I think it's ill conceived because I just think, oh, no, it's not about that. It's not about conflict.

And you and in a way, you're keeping the gangs as gangs. They're not becoming just people, not you. I mean, these other organizations where they're sort of trying to mediate. That's right. Oh, because I don't think they understand. They think it's about conflict and that's very superficial. And you go, no, find the thorn underneath. What is this violence mean? And then there's a commonality. Yeah. And then you go, oh, well, let's try to address what I think. What what we try to address is what if we healed people. And you've got rival gang members perhaps working side by side and then beginning to have conversations and finding common threads and not really then needing to hold ground.

And everybody has multiple enemies, but they become there's a bond that's deeper and stronger than the bond that they have, even with their families sometimes, but certainly with gangs, because community will trump gang. So once you have a palpable sense of a community of cherished belonging, you go, wow, this is great. And the guy making croissance right next to me, I used we used to shoot at each other. So that kind of thing. Does that always happen where there, you know, always. There's no exception because you can't demonize people, you know, and and just put them in the vicinity because they used to say in the early days, okay, I'll work with him, but I'm not going to talk to him.

And that bothered me. Yeah, in the beginning. But then now that does I don't care. Don't talk to him because I know that this will break down. Always. No exception. Always. That's amazing. Yeah. I can't think of a time where where were that didn't break itself down into real connection and relational wholeness between enemies. I'm also impressed by this idea of community being stronger than the gang. Yeah, that's really something. Has the the immensity of the gang. You know, in my I think stereotypical perception is is huge. You're going to support that beyond anything, maybe mostly out of fear or this.

Now there's a weird idea of love, but that you think that's where you're getting your love, that you don't know what love feels like. But somebody says, I've got your back and that feels like love. That's right. So to to dismiss that and honor this community is really letting go of something that that molded you totally. That's exactly right on. It's a big deal. Yeah it is, but you kind of, you know, you go slowly. We don't ask them to denounce anything. Sure. You're you're not indicting anything. You're inviting them to something. And so here, try this on.

And and they really even if there is an understanding that there's a continuum of where people are in their journey, always, you know, so our place is like an AA meeting, you know, who is there? Somebody who's 20 years sober, somebody who's 20 minutes sober, and somebody who's drunk, but he's there. That's who we are. So, you know, we always talk about, I think he's got one foot in and one foot out. Okay, let's kind of see where this goes. And that's where humanity is. Yeah. We hope they'll have to feed out of gang life. But it's hard to let go because that's your whole identity.

And now like even tattoo removal, we don't force that on anyone. And yet Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. There they. Are. And and a waiting list of a thousand people still in in the county of L.A who want to get their tattoos off, but we don't look at them and say, hey, you better get that off when you're ready or not. It's up to you. And that tattoo service is not just open to people who are participants in Homeboy Industries. No. And it's all free. You know, I mean, we've we've done kind of you know, what we say it should be gang related, you know, in case they'll get a gang member will come to me and say, I want to get this off.

And it's, you know, his ex-girlfriend Lisa. So I'll walk them in and I'll say, hey, you know, he belongs to the big bad Lisa gang. Can you remove this from his face? And they roll their eyes, you know, it's like, oh, well, it's that matters to him. So go ahead and do it. You know. We spoke with Adam Nye, who is one of your homies, and he's still in your program, and he came to you, his face entirely tattooed, and he has been the beneficiary of your tattoo removal service. And he was talking about how we got there and how he was. He never felt big and strong and scary, and he needed to.

He was a gang member. And he before he even got his tattoos, he said he used to practice looking in the mirror, trying to figure out how he could contort his face to look super frightening. Yeah, because he was a mild mannered looking guy. And then he just kept adding to this. And one day his whole face was tattooed and he had exercised so much and lifted so many weights. He was burly and he just had become this scary looking guy. And it seemed that the whole process for him of removing these tattoos, which I imagine was quite an ordeal, was just cathartic and just finally letting him get back to showing who he really is was really lovely, the way he expressed the importance of that.

Yeah, I mean, it's very painful and it takes, you know, you have to wait six weeks between treatments so that it takes forever. But there are tons of stories of people there, you know, especially when somebody comes covered in tattoos like, oh, well, look at that guy over there. We have glass everywhere. You can look into somebody else's office. He was covered, and now trying to find a tattoo on his face took him forever. And it's painful. More painful than getting a tattoo. So? So there's that. So do more people than not just pass on the tattoo removal?

I don't know more people than not. I mean, again, we're never waiting for somebody. We we have a waiting list and especially those who are trainees. If somebody doesn't come to an appointment, we don't want to lose an appointment. So they'll go to the trainees. You want to treatment today? Yeah. So they go in and. There's always. Someone. There's always someone. Yeah. Because we have, you know, like 45 volunteer doctors, one paid physician assistant, but all these others who give of their time. That's awesome. So you mentioned while you were discussing the idea of, say, calling the gang your family, and that's where you think you're getting love.

And then because you're perceiving that you're getting love, you're giving back that same kind of love which isn't really love, but that's what you know. And then you come to some place like your community, where there is kindness and compassion and tenderness, and that all seems like it feels good. It does feel good, but yet it's new. And. And how do you trust that? How do you not give up what you've known for many, many years, even though you you feel it's not really writer doesn't suit you or you're not. It's what you know. If you give that away, if you say, I'm investing in this, even slowly, let's say what takes the place of that, that I knew.

Yeah, well, you hope that community of kinship will take that place, you know? And so it's hard because, they do have a lot of invested in it, but it's, it's the difference between conditional love and unconditional love. You go once you see what that is, a love that's kind of a no matter what ness, you go, oh, wow, that's really more compelling than this. This is a one false move kind of love. Yes. That you can be banned in a heartbeat. You can be out even have your life in danger. While these were the guys who had your back before, and now they want to kill you, that actually happens.

Very conditional. Yeah, very super conditional, but unconditional. You go, wow, now I see the difference. You know, no matter what this place is going to is like a big old net, and it won't let me hit the ground. Do you think there's much for unconditional love in our world? What do you mean? Much like there that it exists? Not really. But, you know, the the point of this podcast and homeboy is to put it out there, you know, then you kind of say, try this on for size, you know, and this is we're proposing a movement. We're proposing, and then you want to be the front porch of the house everybody wants to live in, which you are.

You know, I like that. You know, I bet we could do that. And then it's component parts. You know, you can kind of, you know, we do what we do, but we also announce a message, you know, and what if we embraced, you know, unconditional love and kindness? What if we saw as God sees? What if we had a different lens or wiped the lenses, as the Buddhists say, what if we saw this differently? What if we named things differently instead of hate crime? I bet we could say, well, this is about health, not hate. Oh, okay. Well, let's let's not demonize them.

Let's reach out. To about them. Yeah. What can we do? How can we help you become whole Ram Dass always talk about we're all just walking each other home. And I would add to that we're walking together. Home to something health, wholeness, wellness, relational wholeness. That's where we all want to go. It's a shared path. Yeah. And none of us are. Well, until all of us are well. So okay, I'll wait for you, and then you'll wait for me when that time comes. And then all of a sudden, we're just on a path. Well, I think that these are desperate times at the moment, and I.

And I love that we have these platforms. We can talk about this and what we're doing, we hope, is planning a little seed, one individual at a time and and helping us recognize that we do all share a path. And this magnification that I see in, in the people that you support because the trauma is so big and the life stories are so huge, I think it helps some of us who have trauma have our own issues, and they're super big to us as they should be. We deal with what we deal with, but I mean, the strength that some of your homies have is huge and so impressive and and I'm in awe.

You know, I think that that can compel a lot of us to meet some of our own challenges that frighten us. I mean, I know for me, I saw this glimmer of love of what I thought, really, I could truly be. But I remember saying, kind of afraid to go there because I've been living my life like this all along. It's been okay. I don't know if I really know who I am, but I know what I have. If I give that up, what goes there and it is just as you say, I ultimately jumped off the cliff and gave that up and all that went in. There was love, kindness, tenderness.

Yeah, me receiving, me giving and being able to walk a path that is kinship. That was rather selfish of me to say all that but. No, no. Gosh no it was good. Only connect. We all want everybody just to connect. Especially now at a time when isolation is so dominant and especially for young people, exacerbated by Covid and social media and all these things that, you know. But what will make those divisions tremble is compelling. Not case for community, but a compelling community where people look at that and say, oh, I want to be a part of that.

And the more we can create places, vicinities where people can be with each other and share their lives with each other, you know, the better off we are. And that homeboy industry is really industries is really known to millions of people, and other organizations have spawned similar kinds of programs. It's still surprising to me that so many people don't know of Homeboy Industries, and then also don't know about other organizations. It's kind of an underbelly or an undercover current. These things that are operating that are that are helping individuals who can't help themselves.

And I just want all of that to bubble up. Yeah. And I hope that what we do here helps that happen. Yeah. I think in L.A. people know homeboy, you know, because we've been around for 37 years and the first ten years were marked by great hostility, death threats, bomb threats, hate mail not from gang members, but from people who demonized gang members. Why are you helping them? They deserve to be punished. Yeah, and you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. Well, then our bakery burned down in October of 99, so we were ten years in to this.

And then people realize, oh, wait a minute, this is really kind of smart on crime. We thought it was soft, but it's smart. And what was that shift about? Well, it was a shift where people, if they thought the choice was tough or soft, they're not going to choose soft. But if they think the choice is tough or smart, everybody's going to choose smart. So they realized, oh, this is like an exit ramp off this crazy violent freeway. Okay. We like it. And literally overnight, the L.A. times had an op ed piece that said homeboy belongs to the city, not to Father Drake.

So it was really a moment of ownership, but it was a tipping point that happened instantaneously. And and I think I would say that we've sort of been carried on the, on the shoulders of the city since then. You know, we were able to purchase the land and build this headquarters in Chinatown, where we currently exist. Which is fantastic. And you're doing some additional building. We're hoping for housing and such. And how does that get funded? Well, we have you know, it's actually we're frustrated because the city we don't want money from them that that makes it all the more ridiculous.

We're so shovel ready. We have the money. We've been trying to do this for eight years. Donors are going, hey, I thought this was going to happen. I go, the city just it's slow and no, and that's the whole thing rather than fast. And yes. Which would that's too bad. It's really and it's housing. I mean it's and we're not asking them for a penny, you know, but we need permission to do this. And it's just crazy. But you must have plenty of people advocating that go, oh. Yeah, yeah. But it's frustrating because people are voted in and then they leave and then you get new candidates and all of a sudden, oh, wait a minute, you know, maybe we should put this out to bid.

I go, oh, they already told us. Yes. Anyway, it's it's horrible. And people can easily contribute to your. Yeah. Just find your. Website homeboy Industries. Yeah. I just have to ask because it's gnawing at me. So this idea of demons and demonizing, how did the demon come about. What does that mean. Is it bad. The opposite of good. Is it hell. What is that. Yeah I think I think in the church needs to take some huge responsibility for backing the wrong horse in an evil and devil and hell wrong horse, because they kind of felt back to the third century, even where they said they could have chosen between indictment and invitation and they chose indictment, you know, because they thought, well, that's going to get people to put their butts in the pews and, and that's to let's scare the hell out of them.

And they went down that path. It was unfortunate because it was original sin. It was, you know, all this stuff that if anybody can show me that that was ever helpful, I'll abandoned what I'm saying. But of course, it's not helpful. It's never been helpful. It's what divides us. Exactly. And it's the root of everything, you know. So even take policing or anything you don't want to have happen, like excessive use of force. Well, you'll ask police officers informally. What's what. Tell me what? How do you see your job? And they will say, get the bad guy.

And you go, oh no, because there are no bad guys. There are no bad guys. They're there wounded people, broken people. Let's heal these people. But there's nobody's bad. And then people will say, oh yeah, well, what about him or her or them? Nope. That person over there you can't make any excuses for. They're just bad. As if you have to make excuses. Yeah. I mean, I had a probation officer say this to me once, and. And I liked her a lot. She no longer alive, but she she would say, well, don't help that guy because he's pure evil. And I went, whoa, what does that even mean?

You know, I subsequently I know him very well, and he's a great husband and father and worker. But you go, what was that about? Why would anybody say this about somebody traumatized? For sure. And and in need of healing and got healing. But what's that mean? Pure evil. And to impress that upon somebody? Yeah. Well, it was mainly impressed upon me. I don't know if she had ever said it to him, but it was like, it doesn't make any sense. Even if you thought somebody was pure evil, you would know that this was about health and not about. His. Soul.

Just her demeanor around him, I'm sure. Yeah. No. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, she had written them off. So what do you see next happening at home, boys? Well, I hope we get approved to build this housing. That's kind of our next thing. But we're trying to imagine this thing called Hope village, which is a kind of. And actually Frank Gehry, who just died, the architect, he was helping us with us. And we had a lot of people trying to imagine it wasn't enough for us to shake our fist at. We need alternatives to incarceration. We started to ask ourselves, what would you do?

You know, what does that look like? We thought, okay, Hope village is what we came up with. So especially because we we have this all the space land, the city does the county does between our police and county jail men, central jail. And they they've supposedly decided to tear that down and not to rebuild it. So let's imagine a village. Let's imagine mental health, substance use disorder, arts, education, housing, and as a model of of healing rather than punishing. And then if we do it correctly, then the world is the country anyway. We'll say, oh, okay.

Okay. We can do the LA model, you know, because that's more therapeutic and healing and if the largest mental institution on the planet is L.A. County Jail, well, then maybe we could try this. And LA is getting a pretty bad rap right now. Yeah, yeah. Well thank you. Thank you so much. I need to let you go, but I could sit here and talk with you for another hour. It's like there's no cameras or microphones for me. Yeah, thanks. A real privilege being with you. Thank you. I'm going to stop by this afternoon and do a little shopping. Oh, good. That's a good, good gifts, I think.

Oh, yeah. Not to mention the delicious croissants. That's right. Thank you. And we'll support you however we can. And please go to the website and find out where you can help fund this fabulous organization. And please follow us and share our podcast and pass this episode along to someone who might need it. This is and now love, listen to your dreams. Yeah, I'm going to tell you something and live from your heart. Thank you.