_The Los Angeles Urban Project

One in six Los Angeles County residents lives below the poverty line, forty per cent of LA County’s homeless are women and children, and the county has at least 150,000 gang members.  At the same time Los Angeles boasts some of the most affluent residents and neighborhoods in the world.  Downtown Los Angeles tells the story:  only seven blocks lie between the financial district—the economic power of the pacific rim—and one of the most dangerous and despairing sites of urban poverty in America, skid row.

In Los Angeles, this is the way things are.  At LAUP we believe this is not ok.

God’s heart breaks for the poor of Los Angeles, and we believe that if a generation of students gain God’s heart for the poor, it will transform our cities, our churches, our nation, and our world.

The mission of LAUP is to break students' hearts for the poor.

Through weekends, spring breaks, and a six-week summer internship, LAUP is giving students personal encounters with Los Angeles residents who are living in poverty.  In the context of the inner city we are leading students into service of the poor and offering them a foundation of faith from which they gain hope, purpose, and power to combat injustice.  LAUP launches students on a trajectory of using the full range of their creativity and potential to be agents of healing in the world for the rest of their lives.

Click HERE to learn more about what we offer.