BOYLE HEIGHTS : Homeboy Tortilleria Closes; Funds Sought

The presses at the Homeboy Tortilleria have stopped rolling out the corn tortillas that kept at-risk Pico-Aliso youths employed when few other companies would hire them. Without fanfare, the workers cleaned out their space last week at Grand Central Market in Downtown.

For months, they had not made their own tortillas but were selling goods produced by another tortilla company and packaged under the Homeboy Industries name, said Father Gregory J. Boyle, director of the Dolores Mission’s Jobs for a Future Program.

It was a very different scene when the tortilla stand was unveiled at the market’s 75th anniversary celebration Oct. 5, 1992. Employees handed out buttons with the Homeboy logo and sold T-shirts to tout their new venture.

But the tortilleria, which employed from eight to 10 workers, could not compete with the larger companies that produce millions of tortillas a day and sell them throughout Los Angeles.

“There’s no money in tortillas, and there was no way we could keep up with the big guys,” said Boyle, who returned from a 1 1/2-year sabbatical in January. “Now, we’re focusing on bread.”

The tortilleria workers have been placed in other jobs or are helping with renovation work at the Homeboy Bakery on Gless Street next to the mission. The bakery has been closed while the program raises money to replace old equipment and repair the building.

Boyle needs to match a $125,000 grant from movie producer Ray Stark by the end of May to renovate the bakery and get it running again by summer. Boyle estimated that operating the bakery for six months will help the program recoup the losses of the tortilleria and the bakery renovation.

Keri Murray, job developer with the Dolores Mission’s Jobs for a Future Program, said organizers hope to sell specialty breads, such as rosemary and jalapeno/cheese, when the bakery reopens. The seven workers employed by the bakery had been using the Lithuanian rye and pumpernickel recipes of the Czech baker who ran his operation next to the Dolores Mission for more than 25 years before selling it to the jobs program.

The program has agreements with restaurants, hospitals and university campuses to sell the bread, which will work out better than selling in a supermarket, Murray said, because the program will be paid whether the bread sells or not.

“I have every hope that were we to have that capital, we could triple the number of workers in the bakery,” Boyle said.

“It’s the flagship of the Jobs for a Future Program, where we try to find jobs for the youth in the community, as opposed to ‘three strikes and you’re out.’ This is what reduces crime, and nobody knows that better than the people in this community.”