Stopping Bullets with Jobs

"Nothing stops a bullet like a job," says the motto of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention program in the country. For the past 20 years, Rev. Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who started Homeboy, has counseled more than 12,000 gang members who pass through Homeboy each year to learn job skills and attend therapy sessions on everything from alcohol abuse to anger management. Since leaving his position at the Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles to focus on Homeboy, Boyle has hired ex-gang members to work and run landscaping and plumbing businesses, a child-care center, and even a bakery visited by Prince Charles' business advisors! Though it hasn't been easy, running Homeboy has been an continual practice of humility and compassion. "I don't save people," Boyle says. "I point them in the right direction. I say, 'There's that door. I think if you walked through it, you'd be happier."

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