About Project Ropa

Location:

13970 Van Ness Avenue, Gardena, CA 90249, US

Mission Statement

The mission of Project Ropa is to restore dignity and empower the lives of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles by providing clean clothes, hygiene essentials, and employment opportunities while reducing textile waste and minimizing our carbon footprint.

Description

Project Ropa was founded in 2016 by Caitlin Adler to address the challenges that people experiencing homelessness face in obtaining and keeping clean clothes. When you're homeless, it doesn't take long to look that way, and the world and your options in it shrink. Most homeless people literally have only the clothes on their backs. Access to clean clothing is essential to the overall well-being of a person and can be the key to opening doors to employment and housing.

How you look affects how you feel about yourself and how others treat you. We believe everyone deserves to be treated with respect. No one should have to wear dirty clothes or clothes that are ill-fitting.

We provide a curated selection of new and gently used high-quality men's and women's clothing, shoes and accessories, along with personal hygiene products -- all donated by local manufacturers, retailers and nonprofit partners -- which we bring to locations throughout the city each week in a retrofitted van that acts as a mobile walk-in closet. At the same time, the people we serve can take a shower offered by another service provider with whom we work in tandem.

Our social enterprise provides employment opportunities for previously incarcerated individuals and people transitioning out of homelessness to work with our Mobile Hygiene Service.