“People judge me because of the tattoos, but I changed my life,” says Helen Villate, 22, of Hayward. “Removing the tattoos is very important to me - it means I am accomplishing my goal.”
Villate is one of hundreds of people in the East Bay who have benefited from Kaiser Permanente's Project New Start, a free service in which doctors remove gang and prison tattoos from people who have turned their lives around.