Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, on the power of radical tenderness
BY LA Stories Staff Los Angeles
PUBLISHED 5:00 AM PT Aug. 18, 2025
In a new episode of “LA Stories,” host Giselle Fernandez sits down with Father Greg Boyle, visionary founder of Homeboy Industries — the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program.
Through decades of unwavering compassion, Boyle has helped thousands find healing, purpose and dignity — not by demanding perfection, but by offering belonging.
“We’re not trying to create a community of behaving people, but a community of cherished belonging,” Boyle says.
His work is rooted in the belief that transformation begins when we see others as God does — “with the highest, deepest reverence.”
While Homeboy Industries has grown into a beacon of hope with thriving businesses and social enterprises, Boyle stresses that it was never about success or accolades.
“We’re not called to be successful. We’re called to be faithful,” he told Fernandez, echoing the wisdom of Mother Teresa.
The model Boyle created is now replicated worldwide — not as a franchise, but as a communal space where people feel “safe, seen and cherished.”
Amid the violence, trauma and societal rejection many face, he insists that “if they don’t transform their pain, they’re going to transmit it.”
With rising fear in immigrant communities due to ICE raids and deportations, Boyle urges solidarity over politics.
“We will not abandon you, ever,” he says, denouncing the climate of fear.
For Boyle, love is not weakness but the strongest force for healing, especially in divisive times.
“Nobody can align the energies of God with mass deportation,” he says, affirming his belief that we belong to each other. “No exceptions.”