The Homeboy Way, Using Social Enterprise to Heal
Homeboy Industries has become known for working with and supporting some of the most stigmatized and disadvantaged members of society, formerly incarcerated gang members. In this conversation, we speak with Tom Vozzo, CEO of Homeboy Industries, on the incredible impact the organization is making by using social enterprise to heal former gang members and teach them the skills to be successful in society. We also discuss his inspirational and pragmatic book on how the lessons he learned at Homeboy Industries can be applied in any organization. Hope you enjoy the show!
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (computer transcription is still a work in progress), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Tom Vozzo:
Morgan Bailey 0:00
Hello, and welcome to the profit meets impact Podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host Morgan Bailey and I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe. Today, we are jumping into a conversation with Tom vaso. Tom is the CEO of Homeboy Industries and author of The homeboy way, a radical approach to business and life. If you've not heard of Homeboy Industries, in short, it is the largest gang rehabilitation and reentry program in the world,
which over the past 30 years has helped 10s of 1000s of formerly incarcerated gang members develop professional skills by providing jobs training, and even tattoo removal. Now, this organization is actually the first nonprofit organization I've had on the show, I kind of drew a line at one point, saying that I want to showcase for profit organizations showing a viable business model and making an impact. And for the most part, that's true. However, when presented with the opportunity to interview Tom and showcase their work, it was a no brainer, because their approaches this amazing blend of the trician nonprofit, and a social enterprise model, where they actually have several social enterprises under the same roof as Homeboy Industries in the form of the homegirl cafe, homeboy bread and even the silkscreen and embroidery services. Now in this conversation, we learn from Tom about his journey as an Executive Managing over a billion dollar business into running an organization supporting empowering a group of individuals that all too often is just completely rejected by society, and to put into context about the challenging situation that formerly incarcerated gang members face. When you look at the rates of recidivism, or the rates at which incarcerated individuals end up back in prison. It's around 70%. That means 70% of the people who've got out of prison who are who are former gang members will end up back in prison. Now, that's an alarming statistic. And it's a massive cost to society, and people's livelihood. Now, for those individuals, the formerly incarcerated gang members who go through homeboys program, that same rate is around 35%, in essence, cutting that number in half, which is a massive reduction. So in this conversation, Tom shares about the success and the challenges faced in the organization. And the challenges he himself has faced, you know, join a community that when he admits was well out of his comfort zone, it was really an inspiring conversation with a range of topics from recidivism to community impact to the role society plays and organizations play in helping rehabilitate those who have been formerly incarcerated to reintegrate them back into society. It was truly an amazing conversation. So let's just go ahead and jump into it. Tom, I've really been looking forward to this conversation. It's a real honor to have you on the show.
Tom Vozzo 3:06
Great work. Good. Good to be with you. Looking forward to talking to you as well. So Tom, you have a really interesting background. You started in corporate America, you were with Aramark for decades, if I recall and 26 years, 26 years that is quite some time.
Morgan Bailey 3:23
And you've made an interesting transition over the past decade to be the CEO of Homeboy Industries. Now, many people have heard of Homeboy Industries, but for those who are listeners, talk to me what is the special sauce? Who is Homeboy Industries?
Tom Vozzo 3:37
Yeah, sure, company industries. We're a nonprofit organization based here in Los Angeles, California. And we help former incarcerated people and felons. felons and and gang members change your life around. Homeboy was started over 30 years ago by a Jesuit priest, Father, Greg Boyle. He his first spot as a priest was at Dolores Mission, which is the poorest parish in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in the 1980s. And 90s, was the epicenter of gang violence. And what Greg saw was young men being destroyed by gang life and violence, they want to come up with something to get them away and hit upon the simple concept of boy, if you can get them a job and where they get make enough money for, for food and shelter. They're not going to be turning to the gangs where they can make money for food and shelter. And from there, Homeboy Industries was born, as it started as a jobs program to get men at a gang life but then turn into more than just providing jobs but actually helping them heal and really become a support system that it takes somebody to walk away from gang life. So here we are 30 or 30 years later, still nonprofit. We're a $30 million organization we raise $30 million, we spend $30 million. We help out as many people as we can over 8000 people come through our doors every year. And so the one crack
To be part of Homeboy Industries is you have to have been incarcerated, or you have to have been affiliated with a gang and, and we're here to help you, and we're no change your life.
Morgan Bailey 5:10
Now, that's just thinking about how contrary that is to most job applications, where those two criteria are the things that would prevent you from getting a job.
Tom Vozzo 5:17
That's right. That's right. That's right. And and even makes it more attractive. So we have what's called a selection committee where people want to become part of our program. They sit in this interview structure, and you ask them those two questions. And really, then you ask them, why they want to join homeboy. And what we do though, is we take somebody who is the hardest of the hard cases, we do reverse cherry picking, we don't take someone who's most likely to succeed, we take the person least likely to succeed, because we know there's nowhere else in LA County, for them to get the help and support they need. With someone has no family structure, no friends, no support, we're going to help them and theirs. They're going to come in and we're gonna be on our payroll, and work in our businesses while they work on themselves.
Morgan Bailey 6:01
Since the inception of Homeboy Industries, how many people have gone through the program?
Tom Vozzo 6:05
Yeah, well, let me say the best way of saying this, in precoat, pre pandemic year of 2019, over 1000 individuals walk through our doors and receive some type of help. We we take off 12,000 tattoos a year, we have a charter high school, we do GED classes, and a and we have our paid program are over 300 people at any one time are in our program. So you know, probably for the past decade, over 1000 people a year until What's that over 80,000 people we've helped.
Morgan Bailey 6:37
And I imagine the ripple effects that what you're doing are far, far greater
Tom Vozzo 6:41
than that. That's right. That's right. And most people choose to walk through our doors because they're tired of gang life. But really, they don't want their kids to be in the same lifestyle that they've had or their their parents have had. And so the ripple effect is the next generation of of gang prevention. Yeah.
Morgan Bailey 6:58
Now, so Homeboy Industries, you have your you have a unique way of approaching this, you have social enterprise, I wonder if you just tell us a little bit about what are the social enterprise side of humble industries look like?
Tom Vozzo 7:11
Yeah, first and foremost, we're a human services organization, right. And so we help people heal from their trauma, just as I explained, but part of that is, is along the way, you know, you just don't spend all day healing, you have to have some purposeful activity. And so we have our social enterprises. And so we have a bakery where we make artisan bread. And so you have rival gang members, who hated each other out in the streets, and whether they may be different races or different gangs. They're they're rolling dough on our tables making making bread. And we have 11 Bread routes that go around the county, and we deliver our bread to restaurants. We have a cafe home girl cafe, more of a women's only business. And it's a Zagat rated cafe. And I like to say, there's other only other eight restaurants in downtown Los Angeles with as high of a rating. And yet ours is run by gang members and felons all throughout the management team. We have our silkscreen operation, we have hope with electronic recycling, where we take your electronics and and decommission them and sell them sell the parts. We have a diner in City Hall and a couple smaller businesses, we go to farmers markets, but really, we're in businesses that that need people, and then we're labor dependent. And so we want people to have some purposeful activity, and learn how to work along the way.
Morgan Bailey 8:28
And it sounds like that that purpose element is, is something that's really critical to it, right? It's I mean, it's not just a way to pass time. But imagine I mean, you're you're taking individuals who may not have felt a sense of purpose or community. And you're building that structure for them.
Tom Vozzo 8:44
Yeah, very much. Yeah, there's two aspects of that are folks who come in are and we call them trainees, their employees, which call them trainees, that part of our program. You know, they're very loyal, because we're really the first one has ever offered them a job, you know, 90% of the people we serve have never held a job for more than four weeks in their life. And so if you think about is my side comment everything about our society, releasing 1000s and 10,000 people out of the prison system every year. And somewhere the rest of society thinks well, they're just Well, that's fine, they're gonna go get a job. Well, they don't have the skill set to get a job. They haven't been taught how to work. And then you know, they're not in no employers gonna hire them. So what happens the force then they go back to their gang and try to make it that way. So most of what we do is we're the first one who's gives them a job and gives them those chances along the way. And the other aspect of this is that you know, at the end of the day, I know it sounds cliche, peaches people just want to have an honest day work honest, a wage honest they work right. And although they're making a lot less money now than selling drugs on the street, that's what they want to do. And they want to show their children that they can they can do it and they can pull that off.
Morgan Bailey 10:02
Now, I want to back up a little bit, right? Because you took some time to to get to where you're working at now with Homeboy Industries. Now, you know, working for large Aramark is a, you know, multi billion dollar, you know, organization, right with, you know, valued or you know, several billion dollars and what did you learn along the way, both in terms of like, this is how you do business but then maybe some of those times in which you start to realize, maybe there's a different way to do business that works better for people.
Tom Vozzo 10:37
Yeah, I love my time at Aramark and, and I feel so blessed to have a different chapter in my career where I get to talk about the nonprofit homeboy and the work there. But on the on the for profit side, you know, Aramark is a managed service company, you know, we it's uniform services, I lead the $2 billion uniform business, it's food services and, and facilities cleaning, so it's not sexy businesses. And at Aramark. We were successful because it's how well you perform your service, you gain a reputation, you get more clients. And so a lot of effort at Aramark was about put into leadership development, management development and how well you lead your team is how well they did their work and thereby grew the businesses along the way. And so Aramark was very decentralized. So me at a very young age, got a lot of responsibility, ended up doing well get promoted up the corporate ladder. And all along the way, they kept investing in me and my skill set to because it was a win win scenario, the more I knew that, the better I was at the the more our business's performance. So shareholder value was, was was, was in place. So So I love that time at Aramark in terms of being in a service business being the team orientation. We were a private company, that public then we went private again. So there was a lot there that that so value. But along the way, as you keep going up the corporate ladder, you understand the rules of engagement a little better than rules of the game you're playing in. And this is kind of the themes I have sort of in the end of the book that I wrote about how I think businesses can be done differently to help out people what I saw to their mark, which is no different many other public company, a private company was it was all more about shareholder value. So this is one of the mentalities one story that was a seminal moment for me. It was in 2008, as you can remember, there was a great recession, the economy struck shrunk 10 to 15%. Our businesses all were shrinking, because it's it's the type of nature of our business we're in. And so we had to make cuts and downsizing all those corporate words. And so for me, even in my businesses, our profit target of $2 billion was our revenue, our profit target was 150 million. Even if the recession, we think we can still bring in $140 million of profits, right? As long as still remember, it was Christmas 2008. And I was talking to the chairman, two days before Christmas, and he was he was really saying, Tom, you have to get back to your number of 151 40 is not good enough, we made a promise to the street, we need 150. And I'm thinking to myself, that extra $10 million. I knew what it was going to take to get there, I had to do a third round of layoffs, I had a layoff people that have been with the company for dozens of years, dedicated their lives to the company really worked hard. And thinking to myself, boy, I'm running them out of our out of employment, just so we can say we held firm to our commitments to the street, when I know deep down a pretty good numbers guy, it wasn't going to change the valuation of our corporation, and over the long term. And so what struck me was the end of the day, you try to balance people and profits, but the the world we live in a capitalist, our capitalist society, and I am a capitalist, its profits, though, when it comes push to shove profits come first. So I always thought, Is there a different way to do business, they can lift up people as the whole way through, and not break that societal path that you should have with them. And that's, that's the, in the end that led me to thinking that maybe there's a different chapter of my career, I should go push for.
Morgan Bailey 14:23
In the story that you're telling, I feel like so many people have started to experience something similar, you know, over the past decade, is there a different way to do this? It's very transactional way of doing business. Where we, you know, we I to me, I think the fact that we think in quarters when it comes to business is absurd, right? Because we can make business decisions that will impact the planet and people for decades, if not hundreds of years. But we're only focused on what's gonna happen in quarter three months. That's right. And, and that's a really dangerous that's a really dangerous way. That's That's like saying, you know, all the decisions you know, I'm going to make The next 10 minutes will, you know, impact me for the next few days, but I'm not going to think about what those next few days are. I'm only gonna think about the next 10 minutes, even though my decisions are going to impact me way beyond that. And that's just not a sound way of doing it. So, you know, to us, it sounds like you started to have this this shift, right? And eventually, it led to you to pursue no opportunities. So I tell it, tell me a little bit you wrote about this in your book, How did you land and what was it like to all of a sudden have to you gave up this big corporate role to be the CEO of a nonprofit?
Tom Vozzo 15:39
Well, there's a space and time in between. So I, I was one of those type of guys that gave up the corporate role. And like, I didn't want to go, Look, find my next chapter while I'm still doing my business in my corporate role. So you got to kind of be dedicated to your current current employee and finish that out. And so my point was to take time off and do something, look to do something different, not really knowing what that was, thankfully, I was blessed with enough resources where I didn't have to worry anymore about what my next job was going to be. But, but for many years, Aramark always encouraged us to be local in your community. So I was I still am on the board of Salvation Army on Los Angeles, and a fellow board member there, happy happened to be on the Homeboy Industries Board. And I remember Victor asking me to come have lunch at the home girl Cafe, and we're chatting about it. And he asked me to get involved. And in whole time having lunch, I'm looking around at the people thinking, I've never been around a population of this population of people. Although Aramark had a lot of frontline workers, for sure. But I've never been around folks who've been incarcerated, or folks who have been in gangs. But I remember looking around looking at Oh, and I have a pretty good sense of reading businesses and the vibe, these people care about what they're doing. They're smiling, they're enjoying each other, they're enjoying the customers. That was kind of intrigued. So when Victor asked me to get involved, I said, but in two, I want to say yes, but that's okay. I don't want to be a board member. So what can I do? I got time on my hands. I've always wondered, Ken, my skills that were so successful in the for profit world, can they be translated in some way to help people who who need help be the poor of our of our society. And so I suggest as a volunteer, and I've, since I'm an old, old guy with gray hair and business experience, I started volunteering work in the businesses and providing advice. And I saw and I saw right away that the struggle of businesses running within the context of a very strongly mission driven organization. Businesses weren't running real well. And so I started volunteering, and then then a couple couple months into this, a consultant to the board advise father, Greg, Hey, why'd you go ask Tom? Come on over as CEO. And some member Father Greg asked me to come on as CEO, he would step onto the board still be with me still with us. And I thought, what, what is what do I know as a for profit guy about running a nonprofit, and particularly one that's so successful helping people the bank life. But the chance to be around Father Greg was too great to pass up to be in his orbit. So I said, Yes, that and I, I look back even nine years later, now, think, Wow, that was, it was it was leap of faith, but I'm really happy I did that. And I've come to learn so much. And it you know, I came in that role with all the hubris of a corporate executive thinking, Oh, I can do this for six months to a year, homeboy is going through a little bit of a financial crunch, I can help help them solve that and probably move off back into the for profit world. And so before I said, Yes, to Greg, he might appreciate this. Morgan, I, I wanted to figure out, you know, being a corporate executive, always thinking three moves ahead, right? So I say, Well, if I do this job for like, a year, will I be able to go back to the for profit world? Will a private equity company hire me to go run a billion dollar business or not? And interesting, so I called around my network. And for the most part, people said no, but you go do that nonprofit work for a year to your, your, your yesterday's news. And, and so for me, it was interesting decision point, what do I want to do? What do I want to go forward on? And, and obviously, I went forward with homeboy, and I've never looked back on that decision, but it kind of frames up. We all get so focused in the corporate world of sort of rules of engagement and how things should run. Yeah, for my last nine years of homeboy, I learned so many ways that are counterintuitive, goes against conventional wisdom that really, the rest of the world needs to understand more the homeboy way than the tried and true corporate way.
Morgan Bailey 19:53
And that, you know, that's the title of your book, The homeboy way. So I'm curious like if you were to Like, what are some of those lessons that you learned that that contradicted the way of business that you had kind of been brought up with?
Tom Vozzo 20:10
Yeah, but there are many of them in my last chapter book is The 55 notions to let go of and, and let me just take one or two. And I talk about in almost like my awareness, Bob being there. So at Homeboy, again, we help people leave gang life, which means delete gang life, you're mostly leaving your family behind, because they're still in the gang, you're leaving your neighborhood, you're dramatically changing your life. And it's not easy. Society throws up a lot of barriers to you actually doing it the right way. And so, so homeboys really terrific between the case managers, navigators, and the team in place of kind of helping the individual get what they need to get. And so, you know, you know, people will come in and not be able to make the rent payment, we can rent rent money, right? And not people will don't have to sign the paperwork and say, they're going to pay us back. And finally big so no, it will work out. Don't worry, you know, we would, and then we would sort of make decisions, you know, it's so hard for people to come in on time, all the time and be there every day, the parole officer calls the baby mama drama. And I'm thinking, well, one, no call no show or two, no call, no shows you should be fired. No, they have I learned from them and other stressors in their life. That's not, that's not evaluated amount of behaviors, let's get deeper to what causes those behaviors. And so to way of saying, at Homeboy, we do what's needed for the individual not worry about precedent for the whole for everybody else. So tomorrow, we may not do that for a different person, the same way that we have to do today for a certain individual corporate world is like, No, you're you are making one rule for everybody, and you're never deviating. So that understanding of who's in front of you how to help them is a big driver behind being a very individualized organization and being a really people driven organization. Much more so than I had learned I thought at a people driven Corporation.
Morgan Bailey 22:06
I mean, to me with this, I mean, it sounds much more like a family.
Tom Vozzo 22:10
Right? thing, right?
Morgan Bailey 22:13
We don't you know, we don't have as much control over our family members, except perhaps sometimes you would like, right. But when you when you build in that, that strong cohesion. The organization, that community is able to withstand a whole lot more. Right? There's right and what I'm hearing from you is that he, you know, you get the loyalty you give, right and and by you giving people grace when you're giving people compassion, right? In return, you're you're getting their loyalty.
Tom Vozzo 22:47
Yeah, yeah, without a doubt, and we use those words quite a bit. And it's, when someone comes in, walks through our doors for the first time, they're looking for help. They're just looking to get into gang life and all the life. I mean, this is these are people society throws away never wants to deal with again, all their life, they're told what they're that they're no good. What they're not doing is right. They got to do it better, right. And so when they walk in and ask for some type of help, we go out of our way to say yes, in some way, whether we get them up $20. So they can go by, by this meal, or we give them clothing, we get them a hotel room, we employ them. We do what we have to do for them to feel welcome. And then it's about relational accountability, one on one with their case manager with the folks around them. It's not transactional, it's not consequential in the business world is consequential responsibility. If you don't do your job, your job in jeopardy. Here at home boy, you first start with relations. And that's a that's a big lesson to learn.
Morgan Bailey 23:47
And I'm curious, I want to dive more into the humble industry part. But part of me is curious to know, if you were to go back into the for profit sector right now, as head of a company. What are the what are the main things that you would do differently as a result of your your time with homeboy?
Tom Vozzo 24:06
Yeah, well, first part on the business model, I would make sure that the employee, being the employee focused organization was as high up as being a, a good financial steward and in return shareholder value. I know a lot of corporations have now put that into their value set and it's good, they should do that. But in terms of sort of personal leading, AI will lead more with understanding that it's relationships that that enable people to feel valued and cared for, and it's part of the community number one, and in number two, it's about how well you sort of organize your team so they can feel like they have a balanced life. Like what I I learned to homeboy, let me see if I can explain it this way. In the corporate world, I will always attend churchgoer and leaving my religion. But I knew in the corporate world you weren't allowed to talk about God and human spirituality. I mean, you can, you can make all sorts of probably rude jokes, but you can't talk about God and spirituality in the corporate world right? At homeboy, I solved from the from the men and women, a homeboy from the homeboys and homegirls is that faith actually changed your life because of their own spirituality in their own to their own God in their own way. And it started getting me to actually think more about my own faith and free myself up and think about my own faith, my own journey. And that then brought this extra bounce to me as a person. And so what I am saying is that there's a lot of people may be one of them for all those years was very, almost like one dimensional about business, business, business business, and you got to have a bigger balance in your life, and it's okay to bring that to work. And it's okay. But it's not just one view of God, it's you have to have the open view of everybody's God and everybody's own own way of articulating it.
Morgan Bailey 26:03
There's, there's a part in your book you're talking about, you know, you get to show up as your whole self. Right, which, which is something that we're starting to hear more and more, but what you're, you're talking about in specific detail on practice around faith and spirituality, and how that shows up and within the organization. Know, for you, how else have you had to, I guess, you know, in the book, you mentioned, you know, your conversation with someone where, you know, you were kind of hinting at, oh, yeah, I'll come in, I'll do this work, I'll leave and someone's like, no, humble is gonna change you. Right. And it sounds like, you know, you're, you're alluding to that, you know, through your your own conversations yourself about faith. How else I, how has homeboy changed you as a person?
Tom Vozzo 26:52
Yeah, I like to answer that two ways. Probably more than two ways. So there's so that was a story of Hector, a member. And when Father Greg asked me to come on and see Yo, you know, I was pretty cognizant of what's the rest of the senior team, think about having this corporate guy come in, and all of a sudden, be in charge of of them, because they've been working there. And a lot of folks have lived experience. And so. So I remember sitting there talking to Hector, who has was a client once and has grown up through leadership. And it was, it was very accepting, very respectful of him. But he said, Look, we're gonna change you more than in the then you help us. And I had all the hubris to see, in my mind, I'm chuckling Oh, that's kind of cute that he says that, and I smile back to them and polite. Right. But it was Hector. So smart. He smiles back at me knowing that I'm smiling him for thinking about it. Right. He knows how I have an attitude right here, right? But oh my gosh, even like six months later, a year later, two years later, as dramatically changed me. Yeah. Okay. I've come to learn through a teachings that, that that, that God's too busy loving us to be judging us, right. And in all my life, I thought we were being judged by our I know, we're all being being loved. And so at Homeboy, you can see God in action through the people without a doubt. So if just for me, being able to say that to you, and I read today, Morgan, after all these years, it's a big shift in who I am. It's like, wow, that that's changed me, I would have never had this dialogue with you a number of years ago. And so finding my own my own faith, but also being in community with people live on the margins of our society and poor people of America has really allowed me to kind of see life much differently and is dramatically changed me along the way.
Morgan Bailey 28:41
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, given the stark realities, the contrast that you're that you see that you experience, I can't imagine how that wouldn't, you know, cause a lot, a lot of just introspection, and compassion and empathy.
Tom Vozzo 28:58
Yeah, compassion, empathy, without a doubt, and uncomfortableness. What do I know about working with these folks, I don't know anything about them. But the other thing I caused for me and this gets to my competitive spirit, it makes me angry. Because I see two Americas I see an America that you hide live in, in America, that people who are poor limit how hard it is for them to get health care, dental care how hard it is for them to rent an apartment, how hard it is for them, move their life forward in a positive way, get a decent job. And so part of what I'm trying to do at homeboys sort of we provide services to help people but when I go out and talk and Father Greg was out and talk, it's like, come on and shine a light on this goodness of people, folks, they need help. They need help to move their life forward.
Morgan Bailey 29:40
I think something it's important to mention, I know we talked a little about this before we hit the record button is just acknowledging that we are your two white guys talking about problems that affect predominantly people of color. Right, and we are acknowledging that, you know, at least I feel I'm in a very privileged position and I am doing my own work too. To learn about how I can be of service, and whatever that looks like, sometimes that's just me being quiet and listening and realizing there's a lot I don't know and understand. But how, you know, how is, you know, you being a, you know, you know, white, privileged CEO coming in and leading an organization of people of color, how have you sort of introspecting on that? What does that dialogue been with? With yourself on that topic?
Tom Vozzo 30:30
Yeah, it's, it's always there. And it's, again, it's, you can tell I'm such a cheerleader for homeboy, it is kind of blessed to be in the homeboy environment and night, let me I want to take this from a couple angles as well. And let me say it this way, at Homeboy, we work with gang members, not gangs, right. And so we're trying to sort of take the labels away, in so many gangs are split up by race. And so our clients, our trains that we work with, come into home where we rightly so so much anger, about racial injustice and racial bias, because all their life, that's all they've seen is from the gang on gang, it's from when they go to prison, they got to separate by racial gangs, you know, when they, you know, everything stacked up against them. And so it's part of, rightly so the anger that they have, and what we kind of teach people homeboys you can't hate somebody your relationship with. And so we don't, we don't ever call someone by their gang nickname, we don't ever really refer to their gang with like, the rolling bread on the on the rolling dough on the bread table, as rivals, but they kind of learn to be in relationship, and it stops the demonizing of gang, or you can now take steps to do not demonizing of race along the way. And so we have we're very multiracial within homeboy, lots of people from different gangs with different races. And 10% of our, our team is white. And so to the, to the second question of how is white versus white people color, you got to be very careful about it, because for the most part, that the society that has stacked up against our clients are mostly white, and it can even come down to the correctional officer who's sort of in the prison, sort of abusing them, they're white, and the Warrens, white, all that stuff happens, right? And so I mean, I want to say it this way, and I don't want to be misunderstood for people, because it's very complex issue. But a homeboy, we have a shot at it. Because when I labeling people, it's about being in relationship. So clearly, when I've met, someone first meets me in a home and I try to meet with them, there's that, yeah, there's the visual, right. But then after having a relationship with them, people quickly get past that. But I can never forget that I just by sheer position of being CEO speak from a position of power, let alone everything that the visual of that is. And so it's always been respectful for working with and how we work together, and how we help them. See the racial issues. So we don't run away from the racial issues, we sort of engage it, we sort of have a lot of dialogue about it, because we know new trainees come in, they got that they got that anger along the way. But let me say there's new or I'm making trouble, I may get misquoted. It sounds sometimes they're too busy being poor and home, homeless and no food, trying to live by life, that their first issue with with us is not the color of our skin, that race is not the top or their issue they're trying to deal with at the moment. And so when we take sort of have an attempt at helping them sort of imply the support structure on these other issues, eventually race becomes an issue, but you have at least a relationship in place that you can kind of work from to move forward.
Morgan Bailey 33:46
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's really interesting that what you kind of share, you know, like, their immediate needs aren't about race. And, and we know, we look at the bigger systematic issues, it is about race. Right. And it's, you know, it's looking at the historical things that, you know, started, you know, centuries ago that that kind of continued and persist today you know, through this process, you know, I'm curious sick for you. What's what's been the most sort of uncomfortable piece of this for you to kind of go through to to experience what's been the most confrontational almost like to you and to you are your soul?
Tom Vozzo 34:36
Backstage? I don't think I can add to that last part of that question. On the computational side. What's the hardest thing to do? There's two things done the hard thing right is how do you keep this organization going? We're privately most privately funded government provides very little funding. To us that's frustrating that we help so many people. And because we do it in our homeboy way, it's not The way the government prescribes to help people, we are helping people and giving them jobs, giving them money, giving them second third chances that gets them over the hump. We know but doesn't meet government funding. So how do you keep this thing running? And how do you turn people away? You know, as I talked about how we hire people in the selection committee, now each week 10 to 15 people interview to become part of Homeboy Industries, that means they're tested drug free, that means they've been in a gang, and that means they've been incarcerated. But because the way our finances work and the churn, we can only probably hire one or two of those 15 And so we have to turn people away. So the most stressful part of this role has been particularly in the early years when we're going through a financial crunch if I back to the downsize and had to downsize I know what I had to downsize that means people are back out on the street running with gang doing damage themselves in the community back into jail. I mean, it's really I want to be her pervert here but but it's life and death in some ways. So whether it's soul crushing, adjust, really just crushing. It costs a failure if we didn't make the right decision long ways. Huge. And, and we have so many generous supporters. But yeah, it's never enough if your if your nonprofit working on, on private donations. But then the then the then the struggle of seeing people, the poor health care they get and all those other things. But the UPS what what balances all that out, is that it's amazing to be part of somebody's life as they transform themselves, as they transform all the trauma they've had in the past to be happy people to be people. I've learned spirituality from people, I've learned life lessons from people I've learned to be more generous from, and how they can move their life forward. I think, well, there's nothing I could ever face as anything as bad as them. So why shouldn't I be able to move my life forward? Along the way? So it's very, very ups and downs. Very high, very low. It's kind of balanced each other out.
Morgan Bailey 37:09
Yeah, and yeah, that what you're just mentioning about like that, guy, this this story of individuals going through and healing, you know, that something that is really front of mine, here is how what you're doing it homeboy is you're creating a workplace that is an environment of healing. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how this this paradigm shift of, of how working go from a transactional space, right? To one that's generative one that heals one that produces both for people and their communities?
Tom Vozzo 37:48
Yeah, and that that's a good way of framing it and, and maybe you and I should write another book about mega healing workplace, because that's what we call, homeboy is a healing workplace. And so it first starts with, again, being giving people latitude. So if someone acts out at work, you know, it's not about them not wanting to do their job. It's about the stressors they have had in their life. I got this funny story. One of our navigators, Gary, was, we do thought of the day and he was teaching the newer folks coming in. He was speaking and he's talking about how you got to humble yourself to do work. And because he was saying the story when he first came in his navigator said to him, get Gary on, there's some trash over there. Can you go pick it up? And Gary's quick response was, you saw first you'll pick it up. Right. So insubordination. So I felt in sport nation from day one of being there, right? Because, but you come to learn that there's other stressors in people's lives, that they're sup they're dealing with that sometimes m&a in the workplace. And so how do you have a work a healing workplace is one where you give people latitude, we don't judge them by their behaviors. Some people can have an off day, the you don't judge me, you just come back the next day and sort of allow them to thrive and that and to, to move forward. And so I've seen that happen every day at Homeboy and how do we move that into the into the for profit corporate world is, is the next goal.
Morgan Bailey 39:15
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, look forward to writing that book together. So I'm wondering if you could share, you know, just a couple of stories of individuals who've gone to the program, what is their what is their life, like when they begin? And what does that trajectory look like? And what is the ultimate goal of kind of where they end up?
Tom Vozzo 39:36
Yeah. They have me, let me tell you this, too. There's so many stories and I try to kind of, you know, really let them breathe in the book along the way. Let me tell you a story about Natalie. Right. And I what I tried to do is I tried to be as many selection committees where the people come in and and try Got to become part of our program. And this was a woman just got out of prison, very hardcore gang member tough as nails wouldn't look in the eye. And so she was with us for about over the number of months, you can kind of see, you can kind of see her sort of softening up talking to more people being engaging. And she then along the way, we do solar panel installation training, and she joined our solar panel training program. And so that's, it's a six month program after that. So she went through that program. And near the end of that program, after a year of being with us, me, she would smile, she would engage in conversation, she would look into the eye, you could see her laughing and being part of the community. And then we're able to get a job where she makes $26 An hour being a solar panel, installer, right. And so here's someone who had a really tough gang life, no family support, can change your life right before you. And, and, and be successful. And it's a, it's more than an entry level job. But it's sort of a first real job that they have, and they're moving their life forward. And she'll make, she'll make her her life better for her family. And so it's not about monumental jobs or moving into, but it's about getting people from a very traumatic situation, and stabilizing them, and getting them so they can kind of work every day and start believing in themselves. And that's that's the whole key.
Morgan Bailey 41:36
Yeah, that sounds like a really, I mean, just that aspect of getting someone to really believe in themselves have that confidence is just massive. I'm curious, you know, we've talked to a lot about the, you know, the jobs and it sounds like, you know, for people leaving prison, I mean, it's an uphill battle. Right. And you have the cost of incarceration, the cost of, you know, following so many on parole. I mean, it's it's a large cost to society. However, I think what we've seen is there's not necessarily the investment back in these individuals to be successful, we don't set them up for success. So I mean, what what is the role of society in order to help capacitate individuals such that there won't be such high rates of recidivism?
Tom Vozzo 42:22
Yeah, good question. Because here's my point, like, I'm a business guy, let me take it from my perspective, I'm a business guy, I'm a product of corporate America doing well, right. And so in what I see a homeboy is, it takes takes a lot for people who are poor to get out of that cycle of being poor, it takes a lot of investment, we put a lot of money into people in terms of education, education, mental health, rounding up their skill sets, supporting them, and housing until they get on their feet, so that you can become ready. But at the end of the day, we got to get them a job. And society needs to hire more of this population. Because I know I see how well they work. And other companies can actually should they take take advantage of this of this population as well, because they're, they're good workers. But yeah, if you're gonna hire him, though, you have to sort of again, have more latitude with them. And I'll give you an example one of my woman who's my assistant, she's was a home girl, and a single mother living in shelters. But she was dedicated to a job, she wants to do her job really well. And so we have board meetings that start at seven in the morning, she would get herself there 630 In the morning, make sure that the room was set up, the table is set up, and we're ready for the board mean, anything you would expect from a administrative assistant, right? There was this one time, where up she was ready to come in and she got a call, she gets a call from her parole officer the day before, and prompts his report to report in tomorrow morning, Vice by eight o'clock. And she says, Well, I got a job and have to set up for this other meeting. Promises doesn't matter. If you don't report by eight o'clock, I'm going to violate you and you'll be back in jail. Now so obviously, since we're we understand the situation, we say it's okay. Don't worry about being ready for the meeting, we'll get someone else to cover. But would another corporation give her that much latitude if she if she missed work? Two days, three days and be late because of these other issues in her life. So it takes our business in society can should employ more of these people, but you got to have more resources, more latitude, but amazing results you would see as it goes forward.
Morgan Bailey 44:32
Yeah, and I think going back to that, that compassion, right and and giving people that, that sense of grace and flexibility.
Tom Vozzo 44:42
Yeah, no doubt, and we have to it's hard, but we have to stop our own judging and our own way of thinking about how we would have done to a situation. You know, just by thinking that people aren't working hard enough. They got to work harder to get ahead. We're working hard to get ahead doesn't make me difference along the way. It's gonna have other stressors in their life. It's just, it's just not about the cliche of hard work. Gotta. There's another support structure, you got it, you got to put there.
Morgan Bailey 45:12
So based on your experience, Tom, if you were to give recommendations as to how can we reduce recidivism? How can reduce the amount of people who are coming out of prison and going back into prison? What are the big levers that we can pull on there?
Tom Vozzo 45:28
Yeah, without a doubt, it's the heal from the trauma, right. And so, otherwise, you know, we can father has a great expression, you know, an edge, a more educated person will reoffend, a person was working, reoffend, but who's not going to defend its own who's heal from their trauma that they've experienced? Right and so first is healing. And then providing that backbone support a job of more education so they can kind of those things enable them to move up the economic ladder, so they keep providing for themselves and their family by healing is fundamental this and let me just save the homeboy success. For you, you can say We're successful because because homie show up every day on the road, and we don't have court reporters, people keep showing up in droves for help. But number of years ago, the folks at UCLA did an independently funded study, and showed that people are part of the homeboy program two years later, only have a 30% recidivism rate, which means going back into the jail system and our new crime, then are 30% compared to a 70% statewide average. So here we are working with the hardest hard cases. And we're over two times more, quote unquote successful getting people not to recidivate in the end, that secret sauce is just giving them a chance and and loving them. sounds cliche, but that's what makes the difference.
Morgan Bailey 46:57
Well, I so applaud you and everyone at Homeboy Industries who is doing this really important work. And I'm curious kind of as we as we start to wrap up here, like what? What is it like, look what's looking forward for Homeboy Industries?
Tom Vozzo 47:14
Well, we try to help more and more people our board has encouraged us to keep on growing and doubling in size and, and you know, LA County still has a lot of gang members that need to leave gang life. And, in fact, we have a national or international impact. There's what's called a global homeboy network where 150 organizations from around the country in the world have modeled themselves after homeboy industry. And we provide technical assistance and show them the way but we want them to do it more locally themselves. But it's also part of what we're trying to step forward and say, it's about healing and foundational healing. And it's in this concept of a spiritually soaked environment of a community that makes a difference in more people that can understand that dynamic and bring it to wherever their business, their organization, their nonprofit, the better off our society will be.
Morgan Bailey 48:11
Taught me if people want to find out more about Homeboy Industries, or find out more about your book, how can they
Tom Vozzo 48:17
how can they so my book called The homeboy way is on Amazon, and you can order there and Homeboy Industries. We have a web presence, Homeboy Industries dot O R G, we have a fairly sizable Facebook following where you actually we post videos all the time of our folks given their story and talking about what transformation are teams talking about what how they transform themselves as well. So it's pretty good, it's pretty way of sort of bringing homeboy community to a lot more people along the way.
Morgan Bailey 48:52
What I'm really looking forward to checking out some of those videos and continuing to learn about the amazing work that you're doing. It really is. It's, it's important, you know, and I think just the, just the fact that you're you're bringing in this idea of healing that trauma, right, as opposed to, you know, as a pose to looking at these individuals, as you know, kind of just broken people naturally looking them as individuals who who can heal and can you know, contribute but are really critical in society like we these individuals are needed. And just really appreciate the the depth and level that everyone in the organization is is working on there.
Tom Vozzo 49:35
Oh, great. Well, thank you for having me. And thank you for listening to the homeboys story and, and if anything, all's I want to say is if a if a typical business guy like me can kind of come to an organization and just be part of community and making back everybody can do it. So, so please get involved. Thanks, Tom. Thank you.
Morgan Bailey 49:57
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Prophet meets impact podcasts. If you'd enjoy this experience, please subscribe wherever you find your podcast and leave a positive review. You can also find out more about the podcast at www.profitmeetsimpact.com
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