Transformative Leadership, Community Empowerment + Resiliency with Tom Vozzo (part 1)

We explore the inspiring journey of Homeboy Industries and its impact on marginalized individuals aiming to leave gang life behind. This episode highlights the importance of love, kinship, and seeking joy as powerful forces for transformation and resilience in rebuilding lives. 

• Journey from corporate executive to nonprofit leader 
• Homeboy's unique mission and approach to healing 
• Importance of positive relationships in recovery 
• The role of social enterprises in creating job opportunities 
• Transformational stories of individuals leaving gang life 
• Community involvement and volunteer support at Homeboy 
• Future aspirations for Homeboy Industries 
• Call for corporate America to uplift the working poor

About Tom Vozzo
LinkedIn
Instagram
https://homeboyindustries.org/thehomeboyway/
 

Chapters

• 0:03 Reignite Resilience With Homeboy Industries
• 11:16 Transforming Lives Through Healing and Resilience
• 24:13 The Impact of Homeboy Industries
• 33:30 Supporting Working Poor in Corporate America
• 38:55 Creating Supportive Workplace Culture for Success
• 48:51 Empowerment Through Resilience Podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with all of you, and joining me is your co-host, pam Cass. Hello, pam, how are you today?

Speaker 3: 0:50

I am fabulous Best way to end the day with another interview. So I am super excited to be here, and this is what our eighth day like in a row. Yes, yes, exactly we're gonna have a little break this week, so yes, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:05

We're going to have a little break this week, so we're just going to keep cranking things out, right, like? We have content, we have ideas, we have podcast episodes. We're just going to keep rocking and rolling or RVing or whatever you prefer. Exactly, exactly. Well, we have a guest joining us today and, pam, why don't you tell our listeners who's joining us?

Speaker 3: 1:26

Absolutely so, very excited. So, taking the helm at Homeboy during a financial downturn, tom has steered Homeboy into an unprecedented phase of growth and success. Since then, he has quadrupled the size of the organization and spearheaded thriving social enterprises, growing Homeboys footprint from a single bakery to 13 new businesses which provide both vital training ground for clients as well as revenue streams to support the mission. Welcome, tom, we are so excited for you to be with us today and I would love for you just to kick us off by telling us about who you are and what brought you on this journey.

Speaker 4: 2:10

Yeah, sure. Well, that's a long story to what got me to this journey, but let me, if I can first start, let me talk about Homeboy and so that's sort of put it into context of everything else. So here we are in Los Angeles and we're actually taping in the week that there's a lot of fires here in our great city and it's overall everybody's despondent and in despair and there's a lot of tragedy around. And what's so interesting and I just love Homeboy and I love my being part of this community is that people keep showing up every day and they show up for that sake of community, they show up for that relationship. So who we are? We're a nonprofit in Los Angeles. We help people leave gang life behind. So when someone leaves a prison system or jail system, they don't want to go back and run with the gang any longer. So people walk through our doors voluntarily and we help them leave that life behind.

Speaker 1: 3:17

We're a human services organization. What makes us?

Speaker 4: 3:20

very different is that we give them a job, essentially, but their job is to work on themselves go to the therapy, go to anger management, get their GED, get their tattoos removed. Along the way they're sweeping floors and washing windows, but it's about helping somebody heal. All our folks are victims of complex trauma and we help them gain resiliency. In over 18 months we eventually leave homeboy and hopefully they're resilient enough to take on society challenges. And so that's us. We're the world's largest gang intervention program. Why we're the world's largest? Because LA has the world's largest gang population and we help a lot of people. So for me and thank you for allowing me to be on and talking to you all Like I come to Homeboy, I've now been here 12 years and before that I was 26 years in the for-profit sector of our economy.

Speaker 4: 4:16

I ran a $2 billion set of businesses. My business is at 18,000 employees. I can only say that in terms of the context of comparing my for-profit corporate career to now my non-profit career here, this chapter that I have, and it's pretty amazing. I love business. So I'm a business guy. I go off and I speak at conferences on behalf of Homeboy and I lead off and I'll say right here. I'm a committed capitalist. I think well-run companies are good for our society. They provide, you know, a well-run company succeeds for shareholders, but also it's people want to buy the product or service and that it's a great place to work for the employee base. And so to me, well-run business is structure and quality jobs for people. So those are my values.

Speaker 4: 5:08

And so, showing up here, a homeboy, I had left the corporate world behind. We can talk about that in a minute why I did that. But my friend asked me to who I'm on the board of Salvation Army in Los Angeles. My friend asked me to once he knew I left the corporate world. He asked me to have lunch at the Homegirl Cafe, part of Homeboy Industries. We have social enterprises which provides purposeful activity for someone's day. You can't just heal eight hours a day. You got to do something.

Speaker 4: 5:36

So I went to the Homegirl Cafe and I'm having lunch with my friend and he's talking about Homeboy. I didn't know much about it. We're in downtown Los Angeles and I'm looking around and I'm seeing the workers and I'm seeing that they're working hard, they're engaging the customer, they're taking direction from their supervisor. You know, it seems like a good workforce and I had that realization right then that in my for-profit role I would have never hired any one of them because they had tattoos on their face, they had felonies and they were gang members. So that challenged me to think hmm, tom, you think you're this hot shot business guy, but yet here's this whole population you know nothing about. And so that kind of incentivized me to.

Speaker 4: 6:22

I didn't want to be on the board, so I started volunteering. And I was an old man, gray hair, knows business. So I volunteered in the businesses and a couple months later Father Greg, our founder, asked me to be the CEO, and again I had all the hubris of a corporate executive. I thought I'll do this for six months to a year, help fix them all up and then move on. So here I am, 12 years later, and just love, love, what this chapter of my career has been for me.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Beautiful. I love that. I love where you, you, you, you plug in and you say, well, here are my strengths and this is what I'll bring to the table and in my world, six months, one year, we'll get everything in tip top shape and out the door I'll go. And something else tugged at your heartstrings, I'm sure, or that inner purpose, it sounds like.

Speaker 4: 7:07

Oh for sure, and you know, so again, I'm a big proponent of businesses and creating a quality job, and so early on I saw wow, in the context of a job, Homeboys really help people who are forgotten and demonized in our society. Really helping people who are forgotten and demonized in our society, and that in itself is sort of worth hanging around and being part of. And how do you create more opportunities for more people to have structure and chances in their life? Over time, quickly, over time, I came to realize that Homeboy is more than a job. It's about helping people heal from their trauma and their life sufferings and situations beyond what I ever experienced and could even imagine. And yet at Homeboy, I invite you all to come visit us, and any listener to come visit us. You'll walk through our doors and you'll feel the energy, the vibe, the ethos, the love, the compassion. It's a place that just makes you feel good, because people are their most authentic self, without pretenses.

Speaker 4: 8:14

That tugs on your heartstring, and so if a hard charging CEO like me could use a little bit of my business skills and be part of somebody's life how they move their life forward at that Yep, that's what it's all about.

Speaker 3: 8:26

Love it Well. Share with us what brought you from the corporate world over to Homeboy.

Speaker 4: 8:32

Yeah, so the business I was in again. I was running about a $2 billion set of businesses and this was back in my sort of seminal moment, as I would say In 2008,. There was this great recession in the United States.

Speaker 4: 8:49

You know a couple of years back, we just had a recession because of COVID, but that was a self-induced shutdown. But in 2008, it was about the economy shrinking, and so the businesses I ran were scheduled to produce about $150 million of profit. You know, $2 billion of revenue, $150 billion of profit, and I remember ending the year.

Speaker 4: 9:14

We're getting close to the end of the year and I'm talking to the chairman and at that time I said we're scheduled to be at $140 million of profit, not $150 million, and I remember the chairman taking me to tasking that's not good enough, that we need to get back to the $150 million, that we made promises to the Wall Street investors, wall Street analysts, and that it was my task to find that last $10 million of profit. And we already had done all the right-sizing, all those other things we did and we thought we were pretty good delivering 140 million and so. But I knew at that point that what to take, that to find that last 10 million, I would have had to let people go fire more people, people who've been with the company for a long time, people who I knew we would need when the economy turns back around, that we would need them. And so I'm thinking, well, why am I? We're wrecking their lives because, not because of financial survival, but because we made a commitment to Wall Street to keep our word.

Speaker 4: 10:20

But the Great Recession came along and like it didn't really jive for me. We had to keep our word, but the Great Recession came along and like it didn't really jive for me, and so something that was implanted in my brain and that's like that. Somewhere along the way. While I'm a big believer as a capitalist that our capital markets are set up obviously for a shareholder value to come first and employees to come second, is there something in me wanted to find a way of? How do you have employees at the same level in terms of the same concerns?

Speaker 4: 10:45

and so uh a couple years later, uh, after my um and we were a private company at that point after my golden handcuffs uncuffed, I was able to go off and do other things, and that's. I decided to leave the corporate world behind um, not knowing really what I was looking to go do. I didn't think I would go be a non-profit guy, but here I am. I love that.

Speaker 3: 11:08

What's the biggest lesson you've learned doing this? Oh my gosh, there's so many lessons.

Speaker 4: 11:14

You know it's interesting. I'll do a short little plug. I wrote a book called the Homeboy Way, and I say that because when I came into Homeboy 12 years ago, that first year or two my head was spinning, learning so many things, and I kept thinking I should write a book, because if I was ever to go back into the for-profit world, what would be the set of lessons? So what are leadership lessons? You learn from gang members, and there's a hierarchy in gangs, of course, but how do they think about the world? But then the lessons are what is it like to manage a workforce? Who are the working poor of our society? Right, what are the lessons there? But really, what are the lessons about? If your business model is healing people, how do you approach that differently than if your business model is making money? Right, and there's lessons to all that.

Speaker 4: 12:04

But your question was what's the biggest lesson I learned, um, and this is where, like I think, I was a religious oriented person coming into homeboy, but now I'm more of a faith person. My own spiritual journey and my biggest lesson is that finally understood that god is too busy loving me to be judging me. He's too busy loving you to be judging you.

Speaker 2: 12:36

And, boy, once you really internalize, that and lock in that changes your life. That's a powerful observation, because even if we take that and embrace it as our own right I'm too busy loving you to judge you. If we take that out with us every day, how significant of a difference would we see, you know, in terms of society and how we operate and how we function, this, this division that we see so much of?

Speaker 4: 13:01

You're exactly right. And so now one would think I learned that from Father Greg Boyle, our founder which is true, I mean, he's a Jesuit priest, right. And but really I learned that from our clients, our trainees we call them trainees our homies, right. Yeah, in that, like all our, all our folks are victims of complex trauma. Yeah, you know their second, third generation gang members. They never had a chance other than to be in a gang.

Speaker 4: 13:28

Most of them finished high school. They were told by their parent, their mother, their father, their uncle, to stand on the corner, be the lookout for the drug deal, don't go to school, you're not going to amount to anything. They've been physically abused, emotionally abused. They join a gang. Why do people join gangs? They think it's a way out of their situation, a way out of the trauma. They think it's a family False hope. They join a gang, they do something bad, they go to prison, they go to jail and they don't want to do that again. And so they're victims of trauma. And so I've seen this, I say often. I've seen this, I say often about homeboys if you sort of doubted your faith in God.

Speaker 4: 14:09

Come to homeboy. You'll see it happen every day. You see God's influence every day, and so I've been able to see people as they transform. They come in angry, they come from hurt, and I see them as they move to joy. And why that happens? Back to how you said that they're able to love others when they finally realize that they're loved, no matter what, no matter what they did in their past, no matter what brokenness they had. When they realize God loves them no matter what, then they can start loving themselves. And then, after they start loving themselves, they can start loving their children and then their families, and that's how society gets influenced and impacted.

Speaker 2: 14:50

Wow, I feel like that's such a massive charge when you're taking these individuals through this, because when you talk about complex trauma and even generations of gang members, that thought never crossed my mind. But I'm now realizing that being a reality. When you have all of those things layered together just the environment that individuals are raised in and what they're comfortable with and then coming to terms and realizing that you want something different, that you want to start on a different path or have different experiences and do that healing because that's what you're referencing to is doing that healing work that's quite the overhaul, for I can only imagine that that would be quite the overhaul for individuals. I'm just assuming.

Speaker 4: 15:37

Oh no, exactly right, and it's like. That's why I sounds cliche, but I so admire our people and they have gone through terrible circumstances. They're able to transform their life. You know, it's like it's. You know, if you don't, you know, if you don't transform your pain, you transmit your pain. So they're able to sort of move past that pain. And you know, look, we're a nonprofit organization. We mostly are. We have donor revenue, business revenue, but mostly donor revenue, business revenue, but mostly donor revenue, a little bit government revenue, but thankfully we have generous donors because they see what people have, how they have that much they have changing their life and they're willing to sort of invest in that to happen. Because every one of us as humans has some type of pain and some type of trauma that we need to kind of work through and heal from and become resilient from. And our folks are those authentic voices that had how that happens.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yeah, Well, and Tom, you mentioned that Homeboy offers a variety of modalities for the individuals, for your homies that come through. Talk to us a little bit about the work that you do with the homies. What does that look like?

Speaker 4: 16:49

Yeah, well, we have a big team, and so, while you say me it's more of a homeboy, I'll say y'all, y'all there.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Yes, I'm from Texas, y'all yeah.

Speaker 4: 16:58

Yeah. And so first let me just say it sort of starts for pretty basic. You know, if you think about our population, they've been demonized, forgotten. People want to lock them up and throw away the key, but they do get out, and when mostly people show up to us when they just got out of jail or prison, they're looking for a different way. They don't want to go back to their neighborhood where the gang members are. They don't want to go back to their neighborhood where the gang members are. They don't want to go back to their family.

Speaker 4: 17:25

We've sort of got them into the gang, but all their life they've been told no, they're not good enough. And so when people walk through our doors for the first time, through our founder, father Greg, what we've learned is somehow say yes, get them a meal, get them some clothing, get them some shelter. If they want tattoos removed, get them that going, let them see a therapist. Say yes, and because we now have so many people in our buildings the beehive it's buzzing all around and mostly filled with gang members, because I'm proud of the fact that two thirds of our management team are former clients and we talk about that in a minute. But the point is people walk through there's, they see themselves and others who are helping them right and so so the modality is, and I was more of a how to happen, but like, clearly it's.

Speaker 4: 18:17

The philosophy is about uh, say yes and really help them form positive attachments, positive relationships for the first time in their life. Yeah, and that's really what we're doing. And so, as the business guy coming in, let me tell you a sidebar, for a second Homeboy was going through a financial crunch, running out of money. So when the board anyway, so I got asked to come along, father Greg asked me to be CEO because we're going through a financial crunch. So me, as the business guy that's coming in, I'm seeing all these people that are sitting around kicking it and talking and think, oh, wait a minute, we're not being productive. But you know it comes with what's related. That's about the positive relationships, because folks would only, ever only interact with their own homies and their own gang.

Speaker 4: 19:06

They wouldn't go across to rival gangs or rival races or or so. We're about sort of form being allowing people to have those positive relationships and trusting in that for the first time. And then we sort of then stabilize, find them housing, having they get assigned a case manager, they get assigned a navigator, they kind of work. We've worked through what their challenges are like do they got to get a driver's license? Like we help them on family reunification, do we help them with substance abuse problems, and so we have individual plans along that way along the 18 months, and eventually we rotate them through our social enterprise businesses, because 90% of our folks have never worked in a job, formal job, in their whole life and so got to teach them job skills, show up on time, that type of thing, and so that through a combination of purposeful activity, instruction, the businesses and all those modalities on the mental health healing side, the wellness side, we're able to kind of help people kind of find that resilience to move forward.

Speaker 2: 20:06

Wow.

Speaker 3: 20:07

What's after the Homeboy for them.

Speaker 4: 20:10

We work to get them a job outside of Homeboy. It's not easy. We're always looking for more felony-friendly employers and, you know, through different waves of the economy that's sometimes easier than harder. We're trying to grow our own social enterprise businesses so more folks can land into our businesses. But at any one time we have 500 trainees on payroll so it's not like we can hire all of them. But the other thing is people are with us for 18 months, but very few people with us from day one to the 18th month day straight on, people fall backwards.

Speaker 4: 20:50

So many of us think about a rehab program. On average it takes like 12 times someone going to rehab before they finally get sober. Not that many times for us, but it's like, yeah, sometimes the stressors in life get to people. They I mean a couple. There's only two rules that we have. You know, no, uh, no drugs and don't run with your gang. If you're running with a gang, we're going to ask you to leave, but if you show up late and you can't do this, you can't do that, we'll, we'll look past all that and give you all those second chances. But we need you to be working on yourself and be valid. To work on yourself, yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Tom, what's the? I would guess say I'll phrase it as the most fulfilling or rewarding experience that you've seen for one of the homies that have gone through the program just them coming out on the other end. I'm sure that you have many. What's the one that bubbles up to the top?

Speaker 4: 21:42

No, I'm not going to do one.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Okay, okay, perfect, I'm going to do one.

Speaker 4: 21:45

I'm going to do one, but let me say a couple things. Okay, okay, perfect, but let me say a couple of things. So you know, just on the sheer numbers, a number of years ago we're in Los Angeles UCLA did a study about homeboy. Independently funded study showed that people in part of the homeboy program only have a 30% recidivism rate, which means going back to the jail system under new charges, and that compares very fairly to the statewide average 70% recidivism rate so we're two times more effective.

Speaker 4: 22:16

And I say that because what is our secret sauce? It's really love, kinship, love and kinship and not judgment, right, and that's kind of what people need. And so there's been hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people I've seen over my time here who have just changed their life. They come in like hardcore, bitter gang members and some just eventually leave. They have a good job they're able to take, they get unified with their family, they make amends with good job, they're able to get unified with their family, they make amends with their parents, they make amends with their victims, and so it's so amazing.

Speaker 4: 22:57

But the spirit of your question it's not about the outcome or the successes, it's about the friendships. It's about me and the friendships. I think what I've learned most from Father Greg, which he goes off and writes beautiful books and does a lot of speeches and all but the thesis is he asks us as humans to move ourselves, to be up with the people on the margins of our society and just to be in relationship with them, not to kind of tell them what they need to have done or what they're doing wrong or instruct them, but just to be in relationship with them and to me I yeah, it's just so many people I would sit there and just they would come and talk to me.

Speaker 4: 23:40

I would talk to them and I'm not. I don't. In some ways I'm not giving them any like sage advice.

Speaker 4: 23:45

It they're just it's just about a relationship and for them, it's not often that they see an old white guy that they can sit and talk to along the way, right, but it's um and but, seeing how they they now take care of their children and so that the everyday things that we take for granted. Like you know, we go to the school halloween parade and they take, they ask for days off to go to their kid's school Halloween parade A life they never would have had. When we have a morning startup meeting, oftentimes we sing happy birthday to people.

Speaker 4: 24:16

It's the first time ever in their life, the happy birthday song to them, right, yeah, oftentimes at Christmas time it's such a painful time for so many of our folks Sometimes people locked up for 30 years. They come out. It's the first time they've ever gotten a Christmas present. You know, it's like outside the jail. So there's like those moments, those moments of graces. That just is what I take away. It's not so much about one person's success plenty of successes but it's like it's sort of now being aware that there are moments of grace out there, to appreciate, yeah, that there are moments of grace to appreciate.

Speaker 3: 24:46

Yeah, so you have created this incredible community for these people. You have everything, everything they need.

Speaker 4: 24:53

The team has done a wonderful job at that.

Speaker 3: 24:55

Yeah, tell us a little bit about the team. So you've got counselors, you've got. Tell us kind of all of the spectrum.

Speaker 2: 25:01

It sounds, I mean, like tattoo removers. I mean it's just a massive group.

Speaker 4: 25:12

Yes, we have a fairly large size team and, um again, two thirds of them are former clients. So it's it's great to have people who've walked in those steps and know how to know what it's like to leave gang life behind. Um knows the struggles of believe. The gang knows what when the homie's trying to get pulled on from the gang members, how to pull them back. So we have navigators, case managers. But we already talked about the programs. But our unsung heroes are our volunteer network. So we have 40 doctors who volunteer their time to do tattoo removal. We have 25 therapists who volunteer their time to provide therapy hours.

Speaker 4: 25:49

Along the way. We have an umpteen number of educators. We have a charter high school, we have a twilight high school program along the way, and so we have therapists on staff. We have educators on staff. We have a couple of lawyers on staff, mostly doing family law, family reunification type of things. Yeah, and it's like we just it's like we do all. We have your services under one roof and we sort of stretch our nickels to make it happen.

Speaker 2: 26:22

Wow, that volunteer network sounds amazing. Wow, that volunteer network sounds amazing. And I guess you have the paid staff and those that have graduated through the program and the volunteers that bring it all together. Tom, that's where you are now. The organization was in a different place when you got there. Talk to us about outside of the financial woes.

Speaker 4: 26:48

Was it operating to this magnitude when you started? No, so we were about. When I started we were about $11 million operating budget and now this year will be about a $50 million operating budget, and which means we're serving that many more people. Yeah, and so we've grown, but thankfully we, blessed with generous donors, helped us to grow. It's always you know it's always a struggle making payroll and all you know, to me as a corporate guy, you know you're driven for growth and to help more people.

Speaker 4: 27:18

Father Greg, our founder, doesn't care how many people we help, as long as he's helping the person in front of him today, which is the important part. But you know, each week, even today, 15 people interview to be part of the homeboy paid program and the way the numbers work. We can only take two of those 15 and I try to get on the interview committee as often as possible. And and how we go about it of those 15, we take the person who needs us the most. That's what father greg has taught us that if you're the most successful among those 15, we figure there's another account, there's another program in LA County that can help you, but if you're the least successful quote, unquote there's no one else out there for you and we know you then you're running with the gang, your life spirals downward.

Speaker 4: 28:02

So we take the hardest of the hard cases and because we have donations and we're not so dependent upon government grants that we don't you know government grants, you know they have they have this criteria you have to perform to, which leads to other organizations taking the easiest of cases, that so they can meet their numbers. Luckily we don't have to worry about that and so, um, we take again. We do reverse cherry picking and the only you. Again, the criteria to get an interview is you have to be drug free, been incarcerated and be affiliated with a gang and be looking to change. And oftentimes people just aren't tired of that lifestyle. They just want out, and we help them get out.

Speaker 2: 28:45

Beautiful. I love this. What's the future of Homeboy? What does that look like?

Speaker 4: 28:50

yeah, um, uh, of late we've of really last four or five years really pushing hard on leadership development, and so father greg and I sort of have this statement that we see home down the line, homeboys running homeboy right and uh, and while that's not so gender specific we have men and women but it's sort of people with experience running Homeboy to the future. Right now, at all levels of our organization we have people with experience. On my executive team of 12, we have five who have lived experience. You know, we also hope we imagine someday there's no prison system, but we're realistic to know there is going to be a prison system along the way.

Speaker 4: 29:33

And so you know we what we do is we catch people when they leave and we get them to sort of change their life along the way, because if they do their children will not and that sort of will end the generational cycle of violence of gang violence.

Speaker 4: 29:51

And so you know we're trying to do that, trying to help more people. We also have a global Homeboy network and so again, my offer come visit us. We literally get 8,000 visitors a year coming through our doors. We happily share what we're about. People take tours, our homies give the tours. They tell their personal story and what Homeboys, how Homeboys helped them along the way, and so what we have is now there are 150 organizations from around the world and all the states who have modeled themselves after us. So 42 states, seven countries, and they take Homeboy what we do here and they make it local, whether it's in Chicago or Oklahoma City or Glasgow, scotland, right, they take how we go about approaching people and put a local flavor on it. And so we have this network. So the future is hopefully, we're saying, more people understand the homeboy way of how to help people.

Speaker 3: 30:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:55

I love that.

Speaker 3: 30:56

Do you know the number of people that have completely gone through Homeboy since its resurrection?

Speaker 4: 31:01

Probably. We would only guess probably 30,000. I mean, it's been Father.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Grisman knows for a long time.

Speaker 4: 31:07

You know, we keep growing. Each year we serve 30,000.

Speaker 1: 31:08

I mean, it's been Father Griezmann knows, for a long time.

Speaker 4: 31:09

You know, we keep growing Each year we serve 8,000 people, so it's, maybe it's 50,000, 60,000.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Yeah, but it all started as a vision with Father Greg, I'm assuming.

Speaker 4: 31:19

Yeah, so he started. Let me say that he started over 36 or 37 years ago. His first stop as a parish priest was at Dolores Mission, which is in East Los Angeles, okay, and epicenter of gang violence in the 90s of LA and he saw these young men losing their life to gangs and he wanted to change that, and so he hit upon the obviously simple notion that if you get them a job where they can make enough money for the basics of food and shelter, they're not going to go running with a gang for that money for food and shelter.

Speaker 4: 31:55

So started a jobs program which then led to the first set of businesses which then led to what we are today is more of a mental health healing organization. But the substructure is social enterprise. Businesses is paying people and uh yeah, so it's not like he had this vision. I'm going to start a pumpway industry. It's just sort of just organically grew and it became something.

Speaker 2: 32:18

Yeah more than that something came, something magical absolutely, and it's more than that, because he's also an author and it sounds like he's still doing work within the community. That's right.

Speaker 4: 32:29

Yeah, in fact, this past May I had the honor and pleasure to be with Father Greg as he went to the White House and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is a pretty spectacular honor, the highest civilian honor in the United States honor, the highest civilian honor in the United States, first gang intervention worker, first priest and many, first Jesuit priest, first non-profit leader to be awarded that.

Speaker 3: 32:55

Wow.

Speaker 4: 32:56

Just pretty spectacular and you know what? He's very humble and while he was getting the medal, the president was putting the medal on and all that you know in his heart and also everybody watching back home. It was like it was the. It was the homies being seen, he was being seen, you're being seen.

Speaker 3: 33:14

that was the special yeah, and oh my gosh now it's trickling out to other, making even better impact incredible yeah, if I can kind of switch to talking about business for a second. I would love to.

Speaker 4: 33:31

All right. So one of my passions is really trying to explain what Homeboy does. We've been talking about this for a little bit of time and I love the business community If you have any business leaders out there listening I love the business community to just sort of, you know, take a chance on the population we serve. And so why do I say that the poverty rate in America has been the same narrow band for 45 years? Same 12%, 13% poverty in America. So no one's really, no political party, none of that stuff. No one's really made a dent into it since the Johnson administration.

Speaker 4: 34:11

But I look at Homeboy and I think about what we do. It's about helping people heal, helping the most poor, the most demonized people heal and become resilient and then get jobs outside of Homeboy and get out of poverty. And so if Homeboy can lift people out of poverty with our meager resources, I think corporate America should step forward and say hire the working poor. So, corporate America, the next 10 to 12% of your hire should be from the working poor. Give them a job and provide a little bit more wraparound services. Give them a little bit of latitude so that they can thrive and move their life forward, because someone. You know there's all these things about the homelessness and housing first model or job first model. You know you need all of it together. You need a decent job to be able to kind of have the basic support of food and shelter before you've got to work on yourself.

Speaker 4: 35:06

And so that's my challenge. If you have business leaders listening, my challenge is, you know, come higher food and shelter before you've got to work on yourself. That's my challenge. If you have business leaders listening, my challenge is come higher than working for and provide a little bit. You don't have to do all the support structure Homeboy does. But you have to realize that people come in with different challenges. All our folks I'm so committed, I understand this all our folks want to do a good job While their job performance may not show it, because they got other challenges in their life, not just baby mama drama, but rent is a problem, their parole officer gives them a hassle. I mean there's all these things that the rest of us in America don't ever have to deal with and that gets in the way of traditional job performance. But it's not like they don't care, they just. But if you have a way of they don't feel shame about those struggles and you can support them through those struggles. They're very loyal and obviously great employees.

Speaker 3: 35:56

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2: 35:59

Well, I think if you have, if you own a company, operate a company, manage a company and you're in a position of hiring and expanding your workforce within the company or the organization, that's a key piece when we talk about, like creating that inclusionary space for the employees that are working for the company. Fact that we've seen the same percentage for so many years 12 to 14% it's a matter of taking what you said earlier that still resonates with me so deeply I'm too busy loving you to judge you and putting that into a process for employment and new hire, that process. What are some things that you would recommend to those individuals? If they don't have a process in place, or this has never even been on their radar, how can they become more aware of it and, quite frankly, more sensitive to it?

Speaker 4: 36:50

Yeah, so there's a couple of different ways of attacking that. One way is let me just pick up on exactly what you just said there to be loving, not judging.

Speaker 3: 36:59

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 37:00

Look, I mean I'll give you a long wind up to this. Corporate america is about judging, it's about a meritocracy, and I showed up at homeboy full-throated believer in the american dream, because I did it like in your backpack ready to go.

Speaker 4: 37:15

I know because you know my brothers and I, first generation college graduates. I worked hard, I went up the corporate ladder, made a bunch of money, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, right, yeah, I was able to do that. But I come soon to learn that people who are poor in our society don't have those chances because they have all these other challenges that get in the way you know, and it's like Martin Luther King's quotes.

Speaker 4: 37:37

you know it's cruel jest to suggest to a bootless man that pull himself up by his bootstraps. It just doesn't happen, it can't get there and so it's okay. Corporate America has a meritocracy. Just don't apply it full throttle and in every aspect of thinking about your employees Right, think about your employees as whole people, as their life is being, is lived, and you'll have to measure everything they do, to stop with all the measurements. And so if your thought was first judge via measurements and then care, that's a that's obviously sounds obvious to say it, but it's reverse, where you got to kind of care for people, you know you can measure a little bit, whether sales, productivity or x, y and and Z.

Speaker 4: 38:24

But come on, let's not like have that. Start talking about people's value and their own self-worth and all that. And so people will thrive if they feel cared for and cherished and seen, and that's what I would take back to the workplace, to your question of how do you hire the working poor and our population of people with felonies. You know it's sort of straightforward, but it's also given them more latitude. Let me give you a short story Now. At Homeboy we try to put our folks in all our positions to keep the organization running. So over the years I've had a number of executive assistants and one of them she was an 18-year-old mother and she was in and out of the youth camp which in LA County they mean youth jail and came out hardcore gang member, anger, frustration, all that stuff. And so she came into our program after six months. We wanted to put her into a business slot and so she became my executive assistant Really cares, Very loyal, Wants to do a good job.

Speaker 4: 39:29

Didn't have a lot of skill sets at the beginning but she cared and she was smart and she worked to figure it out and dedicated. You know her and her daughter lived in a shelter for like a year and a half and she still got herself to work and on time.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Well as a non-profit we have a we have a board of directors.

Speaker 4: 39:47

So we have once a quarter meetings and they were 7 30 in the morning and so, uh, she would get here at 6 45 make sure the tables were set up, water was out, paperwork was there. I mean, she did that. You know, not all employees would do that, but she did that, she cared for her job. The night before one of the board meetings she gets a call from her parole officer and the parole officer says that she needed to report at 8 am the next day into his office and she said, well, I have this obligation. I got a job. I have to be there at 645. He said it doesn't matter, if you don't show up at 8 am, I'm going to violate your parole which means she gets put back into prison for missing the appointment.

Speaker 4: 40:35

Now obviously we said okay, go take care of your business, we'll cover it, not to worry. But how many other employers would say it's okay, don't worry about it Probably probably most, not all.

Speaker 4: 40:49

But how much shame would a person have to say to their boss why they're showing up late? Very few people would do that, and thereby they would call out sick or just come in late and get written up, and two write-ups means you get fired. So it's like you gotta hire these folks but you also sort of help to help them through life, not like you got to give them massively extra treatment or special favors. Just just just be practical about it. You know, yeah, don't, don't make up their hours. At the end of the day they'll do something. They'll, it'd be fine. You know, hardcore with the rules and rigid and all that stuff. So that's the type of support I'm saying. You need Mindset, you need to shift, more so than company policies.

Speaker 3: 41:30

Yeah, incredible.

Speaker 2: 41:32

And it creates a culture. Right, I mean you have to have a specific culture for individuals to feel comfortable enough letting you know or anyone know. Here are the decisions that I'm left with today. I have to either show up for my parole officer, I have to show up for the board of director, and both have a significant amount of priority in that individual's life. But for them to have an environment and a culture for them to go to their supervisor or to you, you to say here's where I am.

Speaker 4: 42:03

Here's where I'm stuck right.

Speaker 3: 42:04

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4: 42:07

Totally, totally. Or the homegirl who worked in our merchandise store and the manager comes to talk to me and says hey, you know she's not eating breakfast or lunch. I'm worried about her. And we come to find out she's not eating breakfast or lunch because she's saving her money, because she doesn't have enough money to buy diapers. So how are we? In america, people can't eat because they have to get diapers, and so part of you can tell my attitude here. So I've learned a lot.

Speaker 4: 42:33

There's no great insight, but there's this sort of the america of the poor and there's america of everybody else and so the struggles of the america, the poor is really hard, and more we can bring investment and light into that, the better off. And then that's why I'm trying to sort of say, hey, hire more people, hire people from the working poor and give them some help.

Speaker 3: 42:52

Give them a chance. Yeah, absolutely, let them know you care.

Speaker 4: 42:56

That's a big part of it.

Speaker 3: 42:57

They'll be so loyal and they know you care about them.

Speaker 4: 43:01

They will do their do and it's not like you got to solve all their problems. You just got to let them know you care. Yeah, you don't have to give them a prescription of how to get there.

Speaker 3: 43:09

Because a lot of them have never had that in their lives, that's for sure. Yeah, Wow. You're doing amazing things and the ripple effect is obviously showing, and so now we just need more companies to jump on. Yes, same thing.

Speaker 4: 43:25

Yes indeed.

Speaker 2: 43:27

Well, and I think what you've pointed out today, just in our time together, is that there are so many ways that an individual can make a difference. Right, it's volunteering, it's, of course, making the financial donation and contribution to organizations that are in your community or organizations that you want to support. And then, if you are in a position that you can hire someone and, quite honestly, tom like in this day and age, there are so many entrepreneurs out there, I feel like and small business owners that I feel like there are more opportunities that bubble up that this may not be on those individuals' radars. Right, the smaller entrepreneurial companies.

Speaker 4: 43:59

But the smaller companies and the entrepreneurs can actually make that decision because they're the decision maker.

Speaker 2: 44:03

Exactly.

Speaker 4: 44:04

Now we're going to change the way we think about it Exactly. If we do that, then the big corporations for sure.

Speaker 2: 44:09

Absolutely.

Speaker 4: 44:10

That is what I sort of also emphasized. Something else you said there Definitely support with money. People need money. The working poor, the poor people in our America need money. That helps, right, yeah, support with volunteership Right. And so I've come up like I'm a corporate executive. I was able to find a way of using my skills to help out, and so all nonprofits need people with business skills. But the most important thing is that you show up Is don't feel like you got to be productive when you show up. Just so much of this is sort of being in a relationship with people and just letting it happen. Naturally Not that. Okay, I'm an executive, I know what I'm doing. I'm going to show up and I'd say we should do X, y and Z, marshal these resources, blah, blah. Just show up and be part of whatever that organization is. Be part of that community. It will work itself out.

Speaker 2: 45:06

Yeah, I call those the moments of putting your cape on. I like to remind people you don't have to put your cape on and come in and save the day.

Speaker 4: 45:11

That's a good way of saying it.

Speaker 2: 45:14

Yes, you don't need to put your cape on, it's okay. Yeah, just being.

Speaker 3: 45:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:21

I love that. Well, tom, we have talked about your journey. We've talked about the journey of Homeboy. We've talked about the business side of it. Tell us, is there anything else that you'd like our listeners to know about Homeboy and the work that you're doing, or even just advice for our business owners out there that are listening, or or even employees that are listening in, or someone that knows that they may know someone that would benefit from your services?

Speaker 4: 45:47

yeah, well, yeah, so I got a couple things. So, yes, obviously there's so much to be learned at homeboy. You know, come to our website. There's a lot of content there, a lot of stories. Um, you know, if you want to run a social enterprise, always, always willing to send me an email, always willing to kind of give people some advice on as a social, running social enterprises. But I guess the last thing I would say is you know, oftentimes people ask me well, what would I have told?

Speaker 1: 46:16

myself as a young man.

Speaker 4: 46:17

What I've learned now Right and and it really is.

Speaker 4: 46:22

I don't know if this wisdom comes with age or it just comes from the homeboy, but um, you know it's about. I've now learned to seek joy in life and that creates balance. Right, I was this hard charging business guy. You know, follow the rules I'm going to do well, win, win, win, lose, all that. But um, but over the last several years I've been on this spiritual journey of mine. It's the uh, it's really about not just happiness but seeking joy, finding joy through other people and with other people. So it's not just about about a singular thing, it's like this sort of mutualness of humans You're joyful, my joy, our joy together, right, and you can do that in all situations. And if that's kind of like, if you wake up every day in your mattress, I'm seeking joy and you sat to the joy you're going to have much more fulfilling day, yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:26

I love that. I love that You're actually our second guest this week that has talked about joy and the importance of joy, and it's interesting because it continues to bubble up and this time of year, if you're doing that reflective work or even just looking forward in terms of what you want to do, I think that that's an important one. It's one of my core values for the company and what I look at. If it's not bringing joy to others or bringing joy to me or us, it's probably not something that we need to do, but it is high on the scale in terms of what we say yes or no to. Absolutely yeah, love that. I love that. Well, kudos to you on this journey. Seven years, seven year journey it feels like it's well. You know, they say it's a lifetime anyway, so good luck with the rest of it. There you go, you never arrive. It is the journey, it is the journey, right For sure.

Speaker 4: 48:22

You never arrive. It is the journey. It is the journey, right For sure. You need to savor the journey.

Speaker 2: 48:26

Savor it. Yes, exactly, and you mentioned checking out the website. We will make sure to put the website in the show notes so all of our listeners can find you and Homeboy. And thank you for putting that offer out. If there are individuals that are looking to create a social enterprise, I mean thank you for that. That's a fabulous offer.

Speaker 4: 48:45

No problem. Well, good talking to you.

Speaker 2: 48:47

Oh my gosh, tom, it has been an absolute pleasure For our listeners. If you are looking to learn more about what's happening in the world of Reignite Resilience, you can head on over to reigniteresiliencecom, and, if you have not already done so, make sure that you subscribe to our weekly think letter, where you get more from Pam and I, where we dive into our reflection of these episodes and our experiences with our guests. Until next time, we'll see you all soon.

Speaker 3: 49:13

Thanks everyone.

Speaker 1: 49:21

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.