New contract helps L.A. youth stay out of gangs

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 3-0 Tuesday approving a $1.3 million contract with Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles based organization that provide job opportunities to young men and women to help keep them out of gangs.

Homeboy Industries, founded nearly 20 years ago, has been undergoing layoffs since the beginning of this year when charitable contributions decreased as the U.S. economy took a turn for the worse.

Yet the high demand for the program and its mission to provide positive opportunities for Los Angeles youth helped lead to Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ voting yes to approve the new contract.

“A premier organization that has distinguished itself by helping literally thousands of young men and women turn their lives around,” Ridley-Thomas told the Los Angeles Times. “An entity that has a national reputation for doing good ought to be aided at its time of need.”

Homeboy Industries plans to use the $1.3 million to hire 20 job trainees and provide counseling and other services to 665 probationers and other young adults at risk of incarceration, reported the L.A. Times.