While Leroy Campbell has success stories to tell, the reality of his job is that he loses some of his clients to the streets. “Many have died who have dropped out,” he says. In a building that could use some repairs and paint, Campbell runs the Possibility Program, which takes boys from the streets and provides them with training, some shelter and food, and most importantly, love. “We love them,” Campbell says.

Campbell is from the country and is trained as a production manager. In terms of interacting with the youth, he draws on his experience as a teacher and factory manager, where he learned that he loved relating to all sorts of different people.”I don’t like to see people being ill-treated,” he says. His compassion and understanding likely originate with his experience of being verbally abused as a young person.

Campbell has been with Possibility since 2001 and has seen up to 700 boys pass through the doors of the Halfway Tree office, as well as another location nearby. The way it works is that boys are referred to Campbell through the justice system or by word of mouth. They may or may not have a place to live and they are deficient in skills, both in terms of relating to their fellow human beings and in terms of employment. “We offer services to at-risk youth from inner-city communities and correctional centres,” Campbell explains.

The program was started under former Prime Minister PJ Patterson’s administration and now operates under the Ministry of Youth and Culture. It operates on a small budget and a couple of women come to Possibility a few hours a week to teach the boys. Twenty boys at a time are admitted after a strict interview process with Campbell. They are then subject to strict conditions to remain in the program. For example, they must greet Campbell with a “Good morning” every day. If not, their daily pay is docked.”They come to me and I interview them. A big part of our program is re-socialization and behaviour modification and at the top of the list is to respect authority.”

Under the program, the boys receive a $250 per day stipend (roughly $3US) and a meal, as well as shelter for the day and some training and education. Not to mention the love. “We try to treat them like our own children. We like to keep them as long as possible and then try to step them up.”

Like a proud father, Campbell relays success stories of boys like Damion who has worked for Sherwin-Williams for more than 10 years. Damion came into the program obstinate and stubborn and with a strong speech impediment, but slowly, Campbell got through to him. Or the story of a boy who resisted the boundaries of Possibility for about two years, then suddenly woke up and went on to become a successful carpenter.

But of course, those are just the positive stories. There are plenty of situations in which these boys, who lack basic social skills, have low literacy and have tangled with the law, do not beat the streets. “Some will make it, and some won’t,” Campbell says. However, even if they don’t stick with the program, Campbell knows at least a small level of behaviour modification has occurred. “I meet them out on the street and their behaviour has changed.”

There is no formal means of determining when the boys are ready to “graduate.” But most achieve a grade nine level of education and are aged 15-18, with some staying up until they are 21. “I love when they succeed and become better persons. You cannot pay for that feeling that you get,” Campbell says.

So why are these boys (and some girls, but Campbell asserts that there are far fewer girls since as soon as they hit the streets, they usually get pregnant) on the streets in the first place? Campbell blames an unsympathetic school system and unaccountable parents. “Parents must be held accountable. Children must be forced to go to school,” he says. Instead, some parents create a hostile environment and children are forced to flee for survival’s sake. Or they send their children out on the street to sell things or clean windscreens. As far as the government’s responsibility in the situation, Campbell says there is a dire need for jobs for this cohort. That being said, he adds, “the government has been very supportive in terms of our program but deficient in terms of funding. They see this is important for future generations.” However, with more funding Campbell states that the level of need is such that he could take in up to 100 boys a year compared to the 20 he now has.

When the boys arrive on Campbell’s doorstep, they are unruly and disrespectful. But, he says, if they make it past the three month mark, their natures, hardened by time on Kingston’s streets, will usually yield and soften. “We bend them and bend them and bend them and then they straighten out.”