Inside Homeboy Industries: Shirley Torres on Nonviolence, Hope & Humanity

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

Hi, I'm Cynthia Marks and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation established by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. The fabulous doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome to And Now Love. Shirley Torres is here with us today. I'm really excited. Along with Steve Delgado, Shirley is a co-chief executive officer at Homeboy Industries. Before we dive in, I'd like to share a little bit about Homeboy Industries as you may not have heard of them. After our conversation, you're going to be as excited about the whole idea as I am. In 1986, when Homeboy Industries founder Gregory Boyle became pastor of Dolores Mission Church.

It was the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles. The parish included Aliso Village and Pico Gardens. Then the largest public housing projects west of the Mississippi. They also had the highest concentration of gang activity. That was saying something, given Los Angeles has a reputation as the gang capital of the world. At the time, law enforcement tactics of suppression and criminal justice policies of mass incarceration were the prevailing means to deal with gang violence. But where others only saw criminals, Father Greg saw people in need of help.

Today, Homeboy Industries is the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry program in the world. Welcoming thousands to their doors each year. Each year, Homeboy Industries welcomes thousands of people through their doors, seeking to transform their lives. Whether joining the 18 month Employment and Reentry Program or seeking discreet services such as tattoo removal or substance abuse resources. Their participants are embraced by a community of kinship and offered a variety of free wraparound services to facilitate healing and growth.

Shirley was raised in South Los Angeles, a neighborhood populated by violence, drugs, and gangs, and knows firsthand the structural barriers and challenges facing urban youth and their futures. Shirley graduated from UCLA, becoming the first in her family to earn a college degree. She has also completed a master's degree in social work at the University of Southern California. She focused her studies in community organization and public administration. Her commitment to building communities of support for those least likely to succeed is exemplified in her heartfelt devotion to Homeboy Industries.

That was a lot. There's so much to talk about and thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. You're so, so busy, and we're just thrilled that you took some time to talk with us. And I have so many questions. I think many of us don't know a whole lot about what Homeboy Industries is, how it operates, all the little fingers and tentacles and how far reaching it is, and then also how it's supported, you know, how do you manage to keep moving on with all of your programs and grow and grow and grow? So, so first, how did you get involved with this fabulous organization?

I just want to say, it's really, my life's honor and privilege to pay attention to some of the doors at Homeboy Industries. I first walked through the door and was welcomed with a smile and love. The palpable love that everyone can feel when they walk through. 22 years ago, I looking back now, I can say I was a kid myself and it was really my first job. I went to Homeboy Industries looking for a job, and I found my life purpose. And how did you select Homeboy Industries? I would say I didn't select Homeboy Industries. I would say coming to Homeboy Industries was was my calling.

It selected you. Yeah. And in many ways you know I was looking to always serve my community and work with people on the margins. And I really was looking to make a difference. And to be honest I the time Homeboy Industries slogan was jobs not jails. And while I was, you know, really interested in and doing some of the work, I myself didn't know a lot about Father Greg and his mission and vision and the culture of homeboy, which has transformed my life in many ways. How fortunate for you and for all the people that you work with and serve. So what was Father Boyle's initial mission?

I would say that, you know, I always tell people like Homeboy Industries really began with a prayer, a prayer that really was about inviting people to a whole new life. And opportunity to stop chasing death. Gang members will never say, they're suicidal. Gang members will choose violence because there's a part of them that's been bombarded by a kind of trauma that that doesn't allow them to see that a future is possible. Father Greg has taught me, and and the people of homeboy have raised me to really understand that choices are created equal.

And, young people don't choose gang membership. In so many ways. It's about a life of survival, and it's about belonging. Hopeful kids don't join gangs. It's this lethal absence of hope. But Homeboy Industries was really born out of, a way to try to solve and honor the idea that every life matters and that those that are at the margins were worthy of a different kind of life. And so I would say Homeboy Industries really is designed and set up to deliver hope at the crossroads of life and death for folks that are chasing it. And it's really about an invitation, about imagining that there could be more choices and chances and that no matter what, neighborhood or zip code you're born into, that your future shouldn't depend on that.

I don't know that all of us have ever really thought about what it takes for someone to join a gang, like what you just said was really fascinating. And to that, though, how how did Father Boyle get a foot in the door in terms of being able to show somebody another path when all they likely have known is some form of fear or violence or mistrust or lack of love? How did he begin to open people's eyes? I think presence and a commitment to be with and proximity and build in relationships, seeing past behavior seen gang members not for what they were doing, but for what was underneath that, which again, was a lethal absence of hope.

And so I think Father Greg was in community with them and inviting them with his parish to really think about a solution, about how do we offer hope for the hopeless. And the truth is, he leaned in and he leaned in and listened. And I remember one of the things he shared is he asked gang members, what do you think you need to change your life? And the first thing they said was a school. And so they rolled up their sleeves as a community and they built a school together. They, the gang members and Father Boyle and his volunteers. I suppose that I would say the mothers of the parish were really the change makers that, together with Father Greg, really demanded a different path for their children.

And so together they really thought about not just schools, but jobs. And jobs for the future became the first slogan under which homeboy was born, which was the idea of gang members having a reason to get up in the morning and a reason not to gang bang the night before. Purposeful activity. And then working side by side people they'd consider enemies. And so, so much of what homeboy is about is about challenging the notion of enemy and other, and that through kinship and through working together, that we'd actually build connection and that we would see that we're more alike than we are different.

Scary for a lot of people to enter into a scenario like that. It requires so much courage. Yes. And I don't think in my 22 years of paying attention to a single door that I've met more resilient and more courageous and brave human beings in my life. It's the reason I admire, and I've met some of my heroes who've come through those doors because it requires a kind of commitment to keep getting up, to stop running from some of the things that were not your choice, and to say that the things that you experience, the trauma that you experience, the things that happen to you don't define you.

And it requires human companionship. And that's what homeboy is about. Well, it's amazing that you say that because that's what we speak to all the time, is that you are not the trauma that you carry, not the trauma that's been put upon you. And we maneuver through life carrying that heavy weight. Unless we can come to terms with it, figure it out and figure out ways to let it go. And once you let that trauma go, you can operate from your true self, which is probably a thing full of love and compassion and empathy for others. And I think if we as individuals, all take care of that within ourselves and find that that inner joy and love ourselves, you can't help but bring others up.

Even those who may not, for whatever reason, have the ability to undo the trauma, don't know they have the trauma. But just by this example or exuding these feelings, it's going to spread itself in the communities that you take part in. And you can really feel that. You mentioned this earlier at homeboy when you I've only been there once, and I can't wait to go back about 375 times. But when you go in there, people look you in the eyes. They're smiling, they're gracious. It's it's. As if. Everyone is so proud to be their best self. It's a culture that is, intentional and requires both urgency and patience in this work.

You know, to love is, is to to ask people for permission to walk with them in this journey and to hold each other, and to also see the connection that we have that are healing and wholeness is connected to each other. And so as much as I'm there and as much as we're there as a container to receive people who've never been received in community to hold up the mirror and to say everything you need to succeed you were already born with, you're worthy. Those messages require us to also be able to believe in the exquisite mutuality of the work, that our healing is connected to each other, and that in that exchange and in that relationship, there is a deeper kind of hosting that also serves me and makes me a better person.

And that's how we build communities that are healthy and whole and that speak another language. For as much as I'm really, proud of all the resources and the one stop shops that we offer, I mean, everything that someone may need to change the arc of their life. Every resource, everything, every barrier is, is removed in this, in the design of our programing, our model. But I think what makes us different is really the approach. And the approach is about bombarding people with the message that they are worthy and they are beloved and they are part of, and that they have a purpose.

And sometimes what homies will say to us is the best part of homeboy is a home park, because they feel that it's the only place that they can take off their masks and they feel safe enough to really come home to the deepest part of themselves and accept forgive people who may have not ever offered an apology and that that's part of their healing and wholeness. As you say that, it really seems like something most of us need. I don't know that most of us really understand how valuable we are, and that we are born into this world with a lot of tools, a lot of feelings, positive, helpful feelings.

I mean, they've all been largely covered, covered up, as I said, by this, this trauma that we carry, we could all use something like this and we're human. And one of the precious things about being human is understanding how connected we are to each other and how we do affect each other, and to keep sort of trying to affect each other in loving, positive ways. Absolutely. So when Homeboy Industries started, it was mostly focused on gang membership and and trying to improve the situations for the for those individuals involved in gangs. But you've broadened now.

And so I understand that you also assist those people who have been incarcerated. And are there other communities that you support too? Yeah, we're again, the largest gang rehabilitation, for former gang members and, formerly incarcerated folks, both youth and adults. My first two years at Homeboy Industries was actually working with young women at, juvenile detention camp. It's it's I was in the trenches for five years. It's where I learned so much about how wrong I was. Even though I had grown up in a neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles where I knew gangs, I didn't know gang members.

The way I got to know gang members in my first five years at homeboy. Homeboy makes you sort of surrender everything you think you know about what it means to, serve your community. So what did you discover in that? In that five years, it might be 1,000,007 things, but you mentioned that you didn't realize how wrong you were about that experience. What did you what did these young women share? Well, I think about so much of what they shared was, what happened to them and the trauma they had experience. And that for so many of them, they were in juvenile detention facilities because in so many ways, the lights were dim in their own homes, in their schools, in their communities.

There wasn't a place in which loving, caring adults bombarded them with the message that there was a different way and their behavior was a symptom of something else going on. What I discovered, really, in my first few years was that I was it came to homeboy with this idea that because higher education had gotten me out of my neighborhood and had presented me with different choices and chances, that that was like liberation. When I started to visit homes, when I started to visit schools, when I started to walk with young people to visit their probation officers, once they were released, I realized there was a whole system that really believed deeply in this idea that we had to protect the good kids from the bad kids, and the bad kids were the kids.

I was walking with, to which I was it sort of took the scales off my eyes. And it's when I realized that poverty was relative, that we needed to transform systems, and that we needed to build systems of care that really met people where they were. And what with them to what I know could be allowing people to live their their full potential and their whole lives and to walk toward their dreams. It's interesting that there is this system set up where we are protecting a group of people and dismissing another group, and it's a quite the challenge and and pretty awesome if you're able to find ways to help these people who are considered bad.

What a what a devastating thing to be thinking about yourself, but to find a way to help them understand that they are so. Not that. And I always think about my work, and I want to always honor the divine innocence and every person that I meet and and that we fearlessly and boldly, we stand against the notion that we're going to throw people away for us. That's something that I think for homeboy is something that we're going to always work towards. You know, Father Greg always says a vision still has its day, and we continue to march toward it until the day comes, when our jails are empty.

And our commitment to young people is one that is grounded in generous love and that's how we all thrive. We gather every single morning for a morning meeting where we practice our mantra of no us and them, just us and and that's a ritual in a practice where we celebrate no matter what's happening in the world, we celebrate the milestones. You know, a mother receiving their full custody of their children, someone getting their first year sobriety cake, singing Happy birthday to folks and saying, and we're glad you were born. The gladness and the joy that comes with this work is something we don't always talk about, that there is sort of this spaciousness in this work that as people heal, there is room in which joy and suffering coexist.

And we believe that fully at home. Boy, it's a place that holds so many stories and celebrates resiliency. And we laugh and we enjoy each other's company. I tell our community every personally I see I'm so blessed to be in this lifetime with everyone there. At these morning meetings, I was at one and and just taken aback at how supportive everyone was of each other. Are people excited about coming? Do you have a particular group of people that comes all the time, and then fringe people who show up when they can. As the largest, rehabilitation center in the world, we serve, about 10,000 people walk through our doors each day.

We have about 500 in what we would call 18 month model 10,000. 10,000 people choose. To, oh my gosh, every. Year, hoping to be seen and cherished and received in community for the first time. And I always say gang members walk through our doors and gang members return because of what they experience. And while we may have every service imaginable, or again, I think the antidote and the medicine and methodology is relational tenderness. This culture that that gets practiced in the morning in our morning meeting. What a good start to the day you mention a phrase radical kinship.

Can you really describe that to me? Absolutely. I think radical kinship is about everything being in relationship, that we belong to each other. It's about the invitation again. It's about seeing people beneath the behavior like and seeing people wholly and fully. I think once you have the opportunity to connect and invite and walk with people, you listen to people's stories and all of a sudden you see that folks are miracles, that none of us would have probably survived, a day in a life of what every person has to carry. Everyone there has had to carry so much more than the average person.

To be in kinship with each other means to stand with one another with this, no matter oneness. We're with you. As Father Greg says. Till the wheels fall off or in your corner. And we're champions of love and of believing in people and the goodness in everyone. And that no one is the worst thing they've ever done. True. And there is goodness in everyone. Yes, that's really amazing to think about. The idea that these individuals have so much more strength than most of us have to carry, because we we aren't faced with the same sort of frightening, traumatic experiences.

And, and that's really a strength that could then become so useful, you know, in carrying on in life and using that strength in a in a good way, I guess, to support others and you to really find your own path. So what are some of these programs that you have? Our 18 month motto is, if homeboy was a city and some folks would, you know, would describe it again as a as a community, a therapeutic community. Our 18 month model is like what I would say is the full dose homeboys and doses, meaning you get to choose what you need. I describe it as having sort of a menu of everything imaginable from tattoo removal, case management, workforce development, legal services, mental health and jobs.

We have 14 social enterprises where we employ people, and it's driven by, again, this culture of relational tenderness, where we walk with each other, hold one another. And, our 18 month model is really what the world would may consider irrational. We pay people to be in, what we would say is a is a program that pays people to heal and become stable enough in their lives to get out of survival mode and then move into different phases of our program where they work side by side people that they considered enemies, and then they move on and move into full time jobs outside a home.

But it's a job training, therapeutic community where healing is what happens to all of us when we're together. And those services are free to the participants. They are, and we pay people. So we pay people to become whole and get the stability and the foundation they need to then thrive in their lives and move toward achieving their dreams. Because who doesn't need a little boost? And we want to make sure we understand that again, when we say we stand with the poor and the marginalized and the vulnerable, that we understand that choices are created equal, and that if someone has done the time for their crime when they come out and they're received in community, that they don't have to choose between paying diapers and and paying rent and then making a living.

And if you understand sort of what the conditions of someone, what it takes for someone to be out and stay out and free and be on parole or probation, there's all these conditions that are required of them that oftentimes make it hard to keep a job. And so for us, our program is uniquely designed for folks with the highest barriers to reintegration social, emotional and structural barriers. And so we employ them in our 18 month model where we walk with them, they get a case manager, a peer navigator and mentor, a mental health therapist, and then they move in phases through the program.

But really they get to design what their goals are. And for us that is designing a program that is grounded in this sort of generous, abundant love that allows people to honor the best of who they are. And then a pathway, a real concrete pathway to earn a good living. So during this 18 months, people have, an opportunity to take courses in a specific field, perhaps have some amount of therapy, perhaps work in one of your facilities. Are they getting paid just to be in the 18 month program? Yes. So again, part of paying people is really again, so that they're able to see this as building their new lives and not having the pressure of being in survival.

And their job is to sort of not be overwhelmed by all the requirements of what it means to be free and stay out and alive. And because likely, if you aren't able to back yourself financially, you're going to be feel forced to take the wrong path just to survive. And we want to always part of what we, are proud of is really minimizing any barriers that would keep someone from changing their lives and lean into their strengths and build the foundation, and also the belief in themselves that they they can make and they are worthy of a good life. We have about 200 different classes, academic life skills, support groups, we do everything from meditation, anger management.

We have substance abuse and outpatient programs so that we really understand what is the pain about, and how do you have the rich opportunity to transform it. And when you believe that, then you stand in the power of who you are. And again, the invitation for for at homeboy is about identity development. It's about exploring this question that folks have never been afforded the opportunity to explore, which is, who am I really? Who am I really? If I'm not the worst thing that I've done, then how do I invite it and get to explore and imagine who I can be?

That must be so hard for people who have never really thought in those terms to be given this opportunity, this gift, and look around and think, I'm probably not worthy of this. I don't even know where to begin. I don't know, is meditation best anger management? What do I do here? Well, fortunately we have ambassadors that I would say are hope in the flesh. People who have had the courage to go to places that they didn't want to go, who have created a kind of trust in community that allows people to feel safe enough to take off the mask. And because it's a culture, I mean, we always talk about it being a therapeutic community because the moment an opportunity to connect doesn't start in a therapist as office, the healing begins.

When we receive each other on the sidewalk. We have sort of these therapeutic encounters that allow people to be who they are, be where they are, but also get to sort of unpack things and being community, building a different kind of life. And again, I think there's something about human companionship that gets underestimated. And I think after a pandemic, all of us understand the trauma of isolation, how folks who've been incarcerated have experienced that, but how as a world, we've experienced this notion that the things that change our life, the most are the things that the experiences that don't ask us for permission.

And yet they they, they don't define us. And so we have this opportunity to, in community, reimagine what is the path forward. But it all is about how we can build a trust in an environment in which people get to choose who they are for the first time, they get to choose their pathway, and they get to increase their choices and chances to live their wildest dreams. Yeah, what an amazing gift. Because I can only imagine that so many of these individuals had no path. No path, except perhaps becoming a gang member. And the idea of being able to choose and choose a path that's yours, that excites you, that moves you.

An alien thought for so many people. What an amazing gift. They grew up in as children, in an unpredictable and unsafe world that bombarded them with the idea that they didn't matter at home. We want to be the opposite of that every chance we get. We want to light up when folks walk through the door. One of the things I sometimes say to homies is, you know, where have you been all my life? And we light up and we embrace in this a culture of hugs. And it's a culture of I see you and we got you till the wheels fall off. Because that's what love looks like.

Yeah. Till the wheels fall off. And it really is the, the real thing. I mean, none of you ever back down from that statement. Nobody's ever rejected. Nobody is everything. We always say, come back when you're ready. Not everyone's ready. And homeboy is not for people who need help. It's for people who want help. And I think that's a big difference. No one's mandated or forced. And so I always say to people, our job is to hold you to what you said you wanted for your life when you walk through those doors. And that's our job. And so when people sort of move away from what they want, part of the love is to say, hey, come back when you're ready or you actually need this other kind of support, you need a different dose, maybe higher level of care, but that's love.

It's having those conversations because we care about each other here. And there's a loving way to do that without dismissing someone. And we're not going to look the other way because you trusted us with your whole life. And so our job is to honor you and hold up the mirror and that's what love looks like. And so we always say to folks who come in, who say they want it, maybe they're not ready. Come back when you're ready. And people do and homeboy is about doses. Not everyone gets it the first time. Sometimes they come and it's overwhelming.

And people question, why do they care about us so much? I'm going to come here and get all this help and you're going to pay me. It's sort of a kind of thought that is is radical in itself. But I think for us it's about being innovative and not just saying we're going to disrupt these systems, these systems that actually don't serve underserved communities of color. And we're going to build systems that are innovative and that honor the good in everyone. And I give people who've never had a chance to have the opportunity to not just survive, but thrive.

And we continue to march toward that vision. We want to prioritize not just having more of a therapeutic community in a language where it's not foreign to talk about healing and talking to a therapist and doing away with those stigmas, but that it's something that's honorable and that is something that is about replacing these systems that don't work with systems of care, with which systems, systems that honor loving each other and that disrupt systems of punishment, because we know that the revolving door of incarceration needs to stop. And to be able to find strength in accepting care and being vulnerable.

I mean, that's a lot of strength. And I think very, very scary for many of us. If a person is thinking about coming to you, do they apply or how to say, how does it work? How does one become part of your your family? You walk through the doors. That's it. Walking through the doors is an act of resistance and courage that gets honored at homeboy and, I always say there's the hope that we give to the 10,000 folks who visit us annually looking for that chance to experience the relational tenderness, but also the opportunity, the concrete pathway to a new life.

But there's also the hope that we hold out for the folks who haven't walked through our doors yet. And so every every week we get thousands of letters from people at detention facilities, not just throughout California, but all over the country who are hoping to come through our doors once they get out. And so I always think about us as a beacon of hope, and you just don't know what that light represents for people who may be in darkness. How is all of this crazy, helpful, giant endeavor supported? We've been really blessed that, again, homeboy didn't start with a business plan when I came.

There may have been 30 staff and we had an operating budget of, you know, less than $1 million, and now we're 10,000 people, 500 trainees, 14 social enterprises, and, $50 million operating budget. Amazing. Which comes from philanthropy. We have some government funding. And then we also have, revenue that we generate from our 14 social enterprises. And so that revenue goes beyond paying all of these people that have come to you, and you're paying so that they can get a head start. There's additional moneys to support the endeavor. Absolutely. It's we're creating jobs.

We're providing a solution to the revolving door of incarceration, and we're developing products with the purpose that require innovation and are just beautiful in so many ways because they're made with love. What are some of those things? So we have a cafe, we have a homegirl cafe where you can get the best chilaquiles. In Los Angeles, we have a bakery where you can get your baked goods. Which is fabulous, really, really fabulous. And great coffee too. Yeah, we have a silk screen where we have merchandise. If you don't know, Father Greg's books are phenomenal and really are full of wisdom.

Of the 39 years, almost four decades of working at the margins with gang members. It's my gosh. We also again have, HB, which is a recycling center. Homeboy threads Puppy Feeds, which is one of our newest ventures where we offer a dog grooming salon where again, homies get to have purposeful activity and a way to have a new life and, and connect with with puppies. And our these endeavors all downtown. Are you starting to spread out around the city? We're out. We're all throughout, Los Angeles County. So all our social enterprises are in LA County, in Pasadena, we have our puppy feeds.

We have the Beetle coffee two. Who is that? Is part of our venture fund and owned by one of our alumni throughout the city. We want to announce a message that there's a different pathway and solution to public safety in public health, and that we have the rich opportunity when we bring our resources together to develop an alternative to incarceration. And homeboy is a concrete, example of that and a model. And how great in this city to not have walls between us, but to see how we can support each other. Absolutely. And again, our evolution really, homeboy?

Never said, hey, we're going to grow to this amount or we're going to we always grow in response to what people coming through the doors needed. And prior to the pandemic, we had about 250 trainees in our program, and now we've doubled in size. We've grown really in response to the demand. People want help and people will come. They don't have to be mandated if it works. I would say that so much of our commitment is also to design a program that really centers the people we serve and is led by the people we serve. So we have about 300 staff that run the organization, and 70% of them were once clients.

And what we find is that when you stand with people, when you invest in the healing and wholeness of people, they find purpose. And then they built the healthy communities by holding the door open for the next person. And that's how we see healing transcends the buildings and businesses that we have. And that's how homeboy is not just an organization, but it's become a movement. So what can we do? Those of us that are outside of Homeboy Industries. Come through the doors, be part of the movement. We have a global Homeboy network where folks from all throughout the nation and different parts of the world have come through our doors and been inspired and then taken the parts of homeboy to translate and to help alleviate suffering in their own hometowns.

And they've replicated parts of the model that that echoed that. And and that's how we've been kind of a movement. So I would invite everyone to support us by, you know, being part of the movement, whether that's walking into our social enterprises and supporting us or coming through the doors and volunteering. We need all hands on on deck. I hate to bring it up. You might be flooded, but people would actually walk through the doors and say, hey, I'm here. I'd like to volunteer. We always say, it's not what you do at homeboy. It's what happens to all of us when we're together and are committed.

Our world is changing rapidly, and the way different enterprises are funded now is changing, and a lot of government funding is being pulled back. And what's happening to to you? Our funding streams are diversified. And while we have felt on a slight impact, government funding is only about 20% of our total operating budget. And again, the movement has allowed for philanthropy and for our own social enterprises to help us. And so any gifts that, we receive is a gift that goes to the people who walk through our doors and to really help us be part of the solution, in, in L.A.

County and beyond for you. And what you're doing as a pretty new CEO, what are your responsibilities? My responsibilities as a, as a CEO are to continue to be grounded in the idea of abundance and that the vision still has its day, that we've got work to do, and that because the world is changing, because the context is different, then we need to continue to evolve how we are committed to the healing and wholeness of people, and that our community is worthy of investing and in their healing. And I would say historically, it's important to understand that the criminalizing of the poor has happened.

And while there's been policy changes, there hasn't been enough investment. And, making sure that healings afforded to the poor. And so we're committed to that through innovation and continuing to disrupt but also build systems. And so my job is, is to continue to advocate and march toward the vision that the people who, you know, have always been less will one day be first. How is your community dealing with our issues, issues around immigration right now, particularly here in Los Angeles? It's we are all hyper aware of what's going on. I think our hearts are heavy, but the messages and what's happening is not new.

It's history repeating itself in our community. What we've done is we have doubled down on championing our mission forward and being hope at this time in the world more than ever, and making sure that we understand that committing to your own transformation at this time is an act of resistance. But living out our mission at this time in the world is an act of resistance. And the attacks on our Brown community, while they're are devastating that we are standing up by standing strong and the power of being together and facing this together, but also staying committed to nonviolence, staying committed to what we know we need to honor, which is a pathway to a different life and upward mobility.

So how are you coming together to create that scenario where folks aren't just acting out of anger and folks are discovering that really, if I come from my heart and my place of love, and I support other people who are feeling frightened, I mean, how are you? How is that presented? It's it all seems so frightening to get out of that sort of downward spiral role. We were having a healing circle during some of the early protests, and had the chance to listen to what our community is feeling, and one of the threats was sort of resisting the urge to be violent.

And how sort of sitting on people. And I remember vividly someone saying, I didn't know there was another way till I got to homeboy. I only knew the language of violence, but because I'm part of this, I know now there's another way. So it's easy to resist that. Then, once you know. I don't know that it's easy. But there is a consciousness, an awareness and an awakening that happens when you are part of a culture that continuously challenge you to let go of what you feel and to stay committed. Another person talked a lot about the responsibility to their children every day, and having that as a forefront in all of this, and how that, again, is their commitment to their new life is the biggest form of resistance.

I think that noticing that maybe your tendency would be to say, I'm going out there, I'm going to stop this, and that may involve some violence or something. And if you if you've had an experience that points you in another direction, you can really see that and say, okay, what am I feeling now? Why? Why is that my instinct to go and do this and and consider it and find other options? More than anything, what we find is that people want to do something good for someone that is vulnerable or doesn't have a voice, and mostly that comes really from the empathy of knowing what that's like.

There's a kind of empathy, an experience our community has that they connect with and they want to protect and they want to step in. We developed the containers at homeboy to lean on that and to say you could deliver groceries to someone who doesn't feel safe coming out. A lot of the times we don't have that. Those ideas aren't coming from me or from another staff. It's coming from the community themselves. They're rolling up their sleeves and being proactive and leaning in with with companionship is big. So unique. You are like the microcosm we should all be finding ourselves in, that you have a like minded group of people in that they understand that they're comrades, have had some amount of suffering, and that there's empathy to be had, that suffering, those feelings could be completely different than your own.

But all of us walk a path that is a better path when we have others around us to help support us and to be that person walking the path who understands. I'm also here to support you. It's it's just magical what happens when individuals share and become more than just themselves? I mean, again, I still think we we need to heal ourselves first and foremost. But with that healing, we have so much to offer. One, it's a paradigm shift, I think when folks are in survival and their focus is to make ends meet, they haven't had a lot of opportunities to succeed.

They're sort of focused on the floor and how they're going to land, but when they're given the foundation and the pathway where survival is not, they're not just thinking about tomorrow and how they're going to make it, they're actually able to look up and imagine a different way forward. And then the sky's the limit. But it's a big paradigm shift that requires support, investment, human companionship, and then people get to choose and reimagine their futures. It's such an honor, I'm sure. And everyone who is around you, I'm is so fortunate to be in your presence.

Well, this exquisite mutuality, I think that's the the part the that we don't always see. And that you all come together, all of you that are paid employees. Is there a fair share of of weeding through people? Because I would imagine there there's a lot of people who love the idea of being involved, but it might be more than they can take, or they haven't figured out this kind of symbiotic relationship style that you have. How did you get to this great group of people, or is that ever changing? Most of them come from within. I think that is both.

By design. We as, as a leader for me and for all of us on our team, we're committed to to raise people from within at every level. We have someone who was once a client, and we think that's again, part of the secret sauce to this work is not for the faint of heart. As you said, it's it's not for everybody. I think I always say homeboy will test everything you say you're about. I think that's why most of us stay there. Well, I mean, that's good for all of us. I've been there now 22 years, and I think of myself in this certain way. And I'm a better human being, a better mother, better daughter, a better partner, because I am part of this community and culture that tests me every day.

Hard to believe you have all those other things going on this. It's it's important that I think this work requires people that are also committed to continue to practice and do their own work. I wouldn't be here sitting and looking at you and talking about this work, not knowing that I am also a work in progress and that I think for all of our staff, we have practices and tools that help us continue to to look at where are the places where we need work and we need help. Make sense? I suppose you can't really show up well for others if you're not, you know, sort of continuing to work on yourself and dig a little deeper.

What has to be done with integrity. And I think that's what home is test out more than anything. Is this for real as this the real deal today? Really? How is it that they want us to win? Like they've not experienced that, but they're also testing out our. Are these folks for real? Right. How how do I know I can trust you? Yeah. And what does that even look like? I imagine a lot of people don't have anybody they can trust. Yeah, but in a trusting, loving environment, you know, it's not about service provider. Service recipient. You know, sometimes I've got to check so many times, you know, hey, what's going on with you?

But that's the beauty of the work. The invitation is both ways. How do we invite each other to the best of ourselves? And how do we challenge that? What a world we have. If we were all behaving this way, it's not good and bad or better or worse. And really, to be paying attention to what's going on with you, it's it's not that you are a bad thing. It's a you seem to be unhappy today or you're upset. Let's check in. What's going on with you? It's it's a masterclass in mercy and grace. You know, it requires grace. It requires a letting go of the hard and fast rules.

It requires a light grasp on things, requires humor. So at the end of your day, are you pretty much exhausted? I wouldn't say exhausted. I would say I'm full. I'm full and always grateful. Always grateful for the opportunity and the chance to be trusted. People trust us with the innermost parts of their lives and their dreams, and that means a lot to me as a leader in my new role. I hold that in my heart because I believe, you know, I believe that, yeah. This work is, is important to all of us. You know, in hosting others, we host a deeper part of ourselves that makes us better.

And I stand on the shoulders of giants. I always say I this work is is personal and political in a lot of ways, because it is about disrupting the status quo. And I come from a simple dream, you know, I always say I was carried into the world by a woman whose only dream it was to wear shoes one day. And through my journey, I've gotten to know the soles of my feet. And I stand now and with the privilege and honor to, I get to choose what I do for a living. I get to work with people at the margins, and I get to honor their dreams. And that makes me feel full at the end of the day.

That's so lovely. I want that for all of us. If there's any way we can continue to expose what you're doing, it's so valuable. It's so valuable for the people that come to you that you're able to help move forward with their lives. But it's such a valuable experience for us to watch and see how we can lift each other up just by coming from a place of love and trust and thinking about each other from a loving place, and from knowing that everyone comes from love. And there's just so many living examples of true miracles. I mean, and I would love the opportunity for for their stories to be told.

As one homegirl recently said to me, we have an invitation, a partnership with women and young girls in Syracuse. And the home girls are the superstars. They get to go tell their stories. And I had someone who came and said, surely I know you're going to say no, but you got to trust me. I have to take this young woman who at the age at a very young, at the age of 11, she was she got a life sentence. She said her story needs to be heard. And I'm like, I don't know if she's ready. And she's like, just trust me. And I looked at her. I said, I trust you.

Her story needs to be heard. And so I always believe that stories need to be heard and told, and that if we develop the containers for people to own their voices and elicit their voices and they can sing their songs, and all of us can be better from from listening to, to their songs, you know, everyone has a song to sing. I think it's our job to develop the containers and the kind of the kind of conditions that will elicit the voices and allow people who'd never thought they had something to say to stand in the power of their stories. And we have so many living examples of people who are my heroes, because I've seen them come through those doors, had sometimes bowed an inability to sometimes give you eye contact, and now they're like therapists, and they're holding other people.

Because they discovered that they do have a voice and that they are meaningful and they are not that bad thing. They did as you said. Yeah. They just they started to believe in their own goodness. They started to believe in themselves. And again, our job was to just hold up the mirror so that the day would come when they would see what we saw in them, which was everything they needed. They already had their gift to the world. So is there a story you could share? There's so many stories I carry in my heart. Things I've heard that I'll never forget, or things I've seen that I'll never forget.

Like, I'll never forget a person coming through the door who said, I learned to. I learned to weigh dope before I learned how to ride a bike. Or someone who said to me, I asked them, how old were you when you joined the gang? And that person said, the womb. There's just so many stories. But one of the stories I think about is a young woman who, in my early days, she had already done her time and there was no one in her system of care, who could receive her home. She finally got to go home. I remember when she was released from juvenile detention camp, and I was driving her home, and she would tell me, like, what streets to avoid and what streets to go down, because if people would see her in the car, we could be at risk.

And I think her care and attention really, again, even though she had not been afforded that or experience, that there was this abundance of love she had. There's another time where the same person, I could tell she was struggling and she had, few dollars and she was trying to exchange some dollars, and I could tell she was up to something not good. And then I said, I have change. And she had $100 bill. I said, I have change. And she looked at me and her eyes got all watery, and she said, I can't do that to you. And I said, I can't let you do that to yourself.

You know. But I think about those are acts of love and loyalty. And she said, I know I became a gang member, but I never, ever lost my soul. And so there's a deep knowing. I feel like so many people get so caught up in this thing that they're doing that they don't even realize they have a soul. And as you said, they often think they're the equivalent of the worst thing they've ever done. How do they. That's a lot to balance then. Yeah, I would say that most of the folks I me because it wasn't really a choice to just the most generous, loving people I've ever met.

And so there is this connection to their soul and and to God and to spirituality that when you know gang members, you know, wow, they've got so much to teach me about God and love, even though their behavior would say otherwise. You are so fortunate. Thank you. I am. We are. If we go to the margins, we know that our lives will be transformed by the people we meet there. And that's what's happened to us at homeboy, not just to me, but every single person is part of that movement. Well, there's so much for all of us to learn, especially in the situations where we aren't treating each other well, where we are taking giant communities and dismissing them or putting them over here in the bad section.

And there's obviously, from what you're doing, and it clearly works. There's so much to learn, and there are so many better ways to treat each other. Yeah, there's no such thing for us is good and bad. We're all in be good, as Father Greg teaches us. And you know, we don't believe in black and white. We believe in the gray area. And that's where we live at, homeboy. There is a homie says he calls it the grace area. You know, that's that's our that's our way. So what's next? So much is next. We again continue to evolve in response to the needs.

We know that context is comes before content. We know that we are facing a mental health epidemic nationally in a way we've never seen. We know that synthetic drugs are on the in the community, and they're changing how trauma is presenting itself at the door. And so we need to do our work with attention to what we've done is and going to continue to work. So how do we evolve? How do we create higher levels of care, a continuum of care where people can, transition and get housed and get sanctuary and be able to get well before they come into community?

So currently we're working on wiring a property where we will extend our campus to provide residential treatment for folks that are coming home who that's, who may need, again, more of a, sanctuary and wellness and substance abuse treatment in, in a, in a way that is confidential and and a home for people. And is this close to your current facility? It is it's it's close to there. We have lots of projects where we are creating more quality jobs and opportunities to have healing centric workforce development hubs throughout the county and offer more opportunities for people to live their whole lives.

We're also, again, always have an eye toward organizational health and wellness. So developing leaders from within continues to be part of our commitment to our flourishing. So how we develop a culture of learning and development for all our staff is is really important for us. And then really leading the way on alternatives to incarceration and being a model, not just for Los Angeles County, but for the country in the world. How do we, through our global homeboy network, continue to be a movement that announces to the world that, you know, systems of care can replace systems of punishment, and that's so important and exciting for us.

We live in the hope of that. Very. And Father Greg is traveling internationally and speaking to this, is that right? Absolutely. He's, continues to just be living saint and a genius, that. Superstar. That rolls up his sleeves and is more than anything, continues to practice the philosophy of the work. Because there's the philosophy, the work. And then there is I think the, the practice of every day is what really helps you understand and not just trust that folks will tell you what they need, but that you'll be trusted and inviting people to things they never imagined was possible for them.

What a beautiful feeling that must be when you see it happen. Yes, when you get to help somebody discover who they really are. And it's it's exquisitely mutual. Always. Yes, it goes both ways. And that's the beauty of it, that there's a joy and a celebration. And in the moment, it's also about being present and understanding that sometimes all that is promised is this moment. And how do we rejoice in that moment and delight in each other and not get so caught up in what we bring to the table? But just that the gift is the moment that we have, and that nothing and no one is ever a waste of time because death is around the corner for our folks.

That's the reality. They live in communities where even if they've changed your life, they're like warzones and the world continues to be unsafe and unpredictable. For folks who have had to live in communities where survival is the priority. We don't want that for any of us. No. We want to transform our communities. Yes, and we're doing that. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing what you do. And really, you're kind of like the boots on the ground version of what it is we're trying to do with our podcast and our message and Doctor Bale's work, one person at a time.

Everybody has value. Everybody comes from a place of love. Everybody deserves to live their life being their best, authentic self. Absolutely. And the wars and trauma we see outside of us are the wars and traumas that we have inside. And wow, if we can help each other, get rid of that, undo that trauma, undo all the trash we feel we have to carry, how much better off we'll all be. And I again, I thank you so much for what you do, and I thank you for being here. And how can people get to you to offer financial support? Where would they go just to find out more about you?

Because the organization is so fascinating. Yeah. Well, again, Hope has an address and we have a website, where you can visit us and contribute to our mission. Every dollar received is dedicated to the healing and wholeness of people on the margins and second chances. And so we hope that we continue to get the support we've gotten through the years so that we resist the urge to go backwards and that we continue to invest in the solution. And again, systems of care and community that really honor the the best in people. And I love that you said resist the urge to go backwards.

That holds true for each of us as individuals, whether we've struggled or not. And and also as communities. It's it's you have to think twice to make sure you're not backing up. Yeah. And everything begins with an invitation. I thank you for the invitation to be here and talk about our work and about the courage required to change and transform your pain, so you stop transmitting it. How do we change things is through invitation and through commitment to receive each other and that transforms all of us. It does. And I'm inviting you back. Thank you.

And I'm inviting you to bring some of those fabulous individuals who would be happy to share their stories. There's so much for all of us. They're my personal heroes, and I would love for them to get to, in their own voice, talk about their resiliency and their journeys. Well, let's do that. So if I'm going to find you, am I going to Homeboy Industries? Org talk or. Homeboy Industries during. Homeboy industries.org? Check it out. It's a great website and there's so much information you'll find it fascinating. Thank you. Thank you for listening and pay attention because we're going to be doing more of this with our wonderful guest today.

Thank you Shirley. Thank you so much. Thank you.