Current and former gang members have long come to Homeboy Industries to get their lives back on track, in part lured by their trust in Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who founded the nonprofit nearly 40 years ago.
At Homeboy’s headquarters in Chinatown, people receive employment, tattoo removal, therapy and more. But in recent years, Homeboy said individuals increasingly arrive needing more help than the nonprofit can provide.
Faced with pronounced substance abuse and mental health problems that require supervision and a place to sleep while undergoing treatment, Homeboy had to refer those individuals to outside organizations that provide beds.
That’s set to change.
On Tuesday, Homeboy Industries acquired the Monastery of the Angels, a hidden oasis in the Hollywood Hills where cloistered Dominican nuns lived for nearly 90 years before vacating the site in 2022.
Homeboy plans to turn the 4-acre Spanish Colonial Revival property into a 60-bed community where the formerly incarcerated and gang-involved can sleep and heal.
The site, to be named Home of the Angels, will provide 50 beds for substance abuse treatment and an additional 10 for people experiencing acute mental health issues. There will also be outpatient services to treat addiction and mental health.
Boyle said that by keeping people within Homeboy for all their services, there’s a better chance they will succeed.
“They’ll go, ‘Oh it’s Homeboy,’ ” Boyle said. “They will feel seen here, just as they are” at our headquarters.
The Monastery of the Angels has a storied history.
In 1924, a group of Dominican nuns founded the monastery. Ten years later, supported by some of L.A.’s wealthiest families including the Dohenys and Hancocks, they purchased a sprawling estate in Beachwood Canyon that belonged to a copper mine owner and moved in.
Local Catholic women raised funds to build the nuns a new cloister, chapel and office complex on site in 1948, the buildings designed by celebrated architect Wallace Neff.
Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, stands in the chapel at the Monastery of the Angels.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
It’s those structures that stand today. For years, neighbors have come to pray at the chapel and purchase the sisters’ renowned pumpkin bread and candy. But mirroring a national trend of shrinking religious orders and congregations, the last nuns left in 2022.
Sister Joseph Marie of the Child Jesus, who is prioress of the Dominican Sisters of the Monastery of the Angels, said in choosing whom to sell the site to, the nuns “felt a deep responsibility to entrust it to a steward whose mission reflected our own values.”
“In Homeboy, we recognize a partner who honors the spirit of this place and will carry its legacy forward as a refuge of care, restoration, and hope,” she said in a statement.
Homeboy said it plans to maintain the exterior of the Spanish-style property and will continue selling the well-known pumpkin bread and candy, though there might be gaps in service during the transition. It’s also working to eventually allow community members back in to pray in the chapel.
Treatment facilities often face pushback from neighbors concerned over safety, but Homeboy said the site will be staffed and supervised at all hours of the day and that is has a “long track record of running safe, well-managed programs across Los Angeles.”
“If the nuns see [our plans] as really continuous of what their ministry was for perhaps a century, the hope is the neighbors will feel … it’s in good hands,” Boyle said.
Homeboy was founded by Boyle in 1988 and now bills itself as the “largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world.”
The majority of the people Homeboy serves are effectively homeless, sleeping in their cars or couch surfing, Boyle said.
Among other things, Homeboy operates an 18-month program where trainees work in all of the nonprofit’s 14 social enterprises, which include food service, dog grooming and electronic recycling. At the end of the 18 months, Homeboy finds them jobs outside the nonprofit.
Shirley Torres, Homeboy’s co-chief executive, said the Home of the Angels will get people ready to enter that program.
“This would be that bridge to help get that full dose that people deserve,” she said.
Major funding for the new recovery center comes from the California Department of Health Care Services, and Homeboy is partnering with the Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse to run the site. Opening is scheduled for the end of next year.
Father Greg Boyle, center, founder of Homeboy Industries, walks through the courtyard of the Monastery of the Angels with others.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
In addition to typical drug and mental health treatment, meditative walking paths are planned, including one through the property’s Spanish-style courtyard and another to the top of a hill that contains a statue of Jesus overlooking the city.
There will also be educational, wellness and healthy living classes and other group events, in part meant to combat an overall rise in loneliness that has been blamed for worsening people’s mental health and addictions.
“The antidote to addiction is community,” Boyle said. “That’s what we are always trying to foster.”
Inez Salcido, a former drug addict and gang member, said Homeboy welcomed her in when other organizations turned her away.
As Homeboy’s director of recovery and wellness, she will play a major role in developing programs at Home of the Angels.
“This is a dream come true,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see how this is going to take off and grow.”
Times staff writer Deborah Netburn contributed to this report.