Homeboy Electronics Recycling, which breaks down gadgets to refurbish or to resell as component parts, moved into a new 6,000-square-foot facility four days after the fire at its original facility and now employs 18 people who are overcoming life setbacks that include drug addiction, homelessness and incarceration.
Launched in 2011 as Isidore Electronics Recycling, the for-profit business was acquired in 2016 and renamed by Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit that rehabilitates former “homeboys” – gang members and ex-convicts. Homeboy Industries reported $16.6 million in revenue in 2016.
The newly acquired e-waste business recycled 1.3 million pounds of electronics last year and is on track to double that in 2018. “People do bad things and we tell them to serve the punishment, but after we never forgive them,” said Kabira Stokes, the 40-year-old founder and CEO. “We never let them back into the economy. It’s not very fair.”
Stokes’ mission to give back to her community came before she ever thought of running a small business. Inspired by 9/11 and the politics of the early 2000s, Stokes shifted away from a career in costume design, which she’d always loved, into field work for a local city councilman (Eric Garcetti, now mayor of Los Angeles). “If people can’t make a living, what do you think they’re going to do?” Stokes said. “I knew there had to be a way for them to work. I knew it couldn’t be impossible.”
The idea for a de-manufacturing business was birthed from a chance meeting with an electronics recycler in Indiana who was hiring people fresh from prison. Stokes decided to introduce that concept to Los Angeles. Her business has since grown from a company that just breaks apart and recycles old computers, phones and radios to one that juggles data destruction from hard drives and full-service repair. People can also, for a small fee, ship their used personal gadgets to the company for safe disposal.
Employees of Homeboy Recycling said they are grateful to be employed by a company that values their efforts and education. Xuong Cam, recycling supervisor, took up the computer refurbishing trade while incarcerated on a second-degree murder charge. After serving 18 years, he was released in 2013 and began working for Stokes’ small business soon after. “It really is fulfilling. I don’t feel like I have to do anything bad to subsidize what I’m making. I have a stable, steady job,” Cam said.
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