Project Ropa

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 people experiencing homelessness literally have only the clothes on their backs. Project Ropa is the only organization of its kind in Los Angeles: our mission is to restore dignity, rekindle optimism and foster connection by bringing clean clothing and hygiene services directly to our homeless neighbors. Since 2016, we have provided clean clothes to over 30,000 people in need. We believe everyone deserves to be treated with respect. How you look affects how you feel about yourself and how others treat you. No one should have to wear dirty clothes or clothes that are ill-fitting. We provide a curated selection of high-quality clothing, shoes and accessories that we deliver to locations throughout the city in a retrofitted van that we turned into a mobile walk-in closet. The people we serve pick what they need and like from our neatly stacked racks, transforming how they look and getting a leg up to finding employment. From the beginning, we have operated in tandem with a mobile shower provider, recognizing that those we serve have to feel good about themselves as well as their clothes. Now we are a part of the solution, providing employment opportunities for previously incarcerated individuals, people transitioning out of homelessness and Veterans. And we are also enlisting others to share in our mission: we distribute surplus donations of new and gently used men's and women's clothing, shoes and accessories to our network of local nonprofit partners who work directly with unhoused and low-income individuals from their fixed locations in the county.