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What is HOMEY's?
The mission of HOMEY remains to transform the lives of at-risk youth and community members in San Francisco, inspiring them to not only choose a path of education, self-sufficiency and non-violence, but to also strive towards stability in their physical, mental and emotional well-being. HOMEY fulfills its mission by providing participants with educational resources, leadership development, financial literacy, community organizing, critical thinking skills, and cultural affirmation.
HOMEY seeks to further the work of our social justice, youth-led organizing
and continue the political-education and violence-prevention services we
offer low income, Latino youth in San Franciscos Mission District and
city-wide. The youth we serve are ages 13 to 24 and come from immigrant
families, are immigrants themselves. Collectively, we defend our human
rights and civil liberties by taking a stance on economic and environmental
justice issues that affect us by using and leveraging tools such as the
arts, media, community organizing and the reaffirmation of our cultural
identity as Latinos and Indigenous people.
HOMEY was founded in 1999 by youth leaders active in the Mission District
community-led Community Peace Initiative. Out of this effort, community
youth began to take leadership for a number of activities, eventually
organizing themselves into HOMEY. They found a fiscal home with the
Berkeley-based ICRI, the International Child Resource Institute. Over the
last ten years, youth (and adults) inspired by the vision of HOMEY
volunteered their time and money to make HOMEY what it is today, with an
operating budget of nearly half-a-million dollars and eight staff who have
all had first-hand experience with the similar challenges our youth are
facing. HOMEYs growth has allowed each new generation of young people to
experience the power of affecting change and making the organization their
own, but the mission of developing leadership and organizing youth remain
the same.