Skid Row Integrated Arts & Wellness

Health care access

Central LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Skid Row contains one of the largest homeless populations in the U.S.: 3,791 people were experiencing homelessness in 2024, of whom 56% were unsheltered (Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Homeless Count). With 43% of this population reporting chronic homelessness, 36% serious mental illness, and 29% substance use disorders, Urban Voices Project (UVP) responds to this humanitarian crisis with innovative arts wellness programming as interventions that provide awareness and access to mental and physical wellness services, strengthen support systems for our unhoused neighbors, and co-create spaces of belonging, inclusion, peace, joy and hope. Using community singing, UVP equips community members with the skills and connection to local health care resources to meet these needs, while empowering them to find their voice and become advocates for themselves and their communities.

Urban Voices Project (UVP) amplifies artistic expression in Skid Row to improve mental and physical wellness and strengthen social networks among people marginalized by homelessness. Research shows that group singing, at the core of all UVP programs, improves both mental and physical health by releasing positive neurochemicals, reducing stress, addressing complex trauma responses, and building new behavioral patterns. Ensemble singing is also proven to rapidly establish and strengthen social bonds, through which UVP fosters connections to essential services such as housing, food, education, healthcare, and mental health support.
UVP choir member Iron Donato shared, “Singing has saved my life. I was hopeless in my hopelessness and everything was just empty. Then I came to UVP and I started to sing and they brought me my wings.”
Grant funds will support Skid Row workshops and community arts engagement events that engage more than 500 people in Skid Row annually, and allow UVP to continue to make music accessible and free to our most vulnerable and unhoused participants. This includes Neighborhood Sing, an immersive music workshop of participatory singing and mindfulness activities. These funds are crucial as an investment in UVP’s use of music as a bridge for individuals to engage with their health care providers, foster respect and mutual understanding among neighbors, and become advocates for themselves and their historically underserved communities.

Grant funds will allow Urban Voices Project (UVP) to continue its weekly, monthly, and year-round singing activities, enabling us to continue to serve as a trusted messenger between critical community resources and people in need—helping healthcare and social service organizations better serve people facing chronic homelessness. In the short term, this work will promote positive life outcomes among Skid Row’s and Los Angeles County’s under-resourced neighborhoods, individuals marginalized by homelessness, through support systems and connection to mental and physical health services. In the long term, we aim to acquire an Arts Wellness Center in partnership with the Skid Row Arts Alliance. This will transform both the community and the overall landscape of homelessness in Los Angeles by providing a stable system of support, growth, and self-sufficiency for Skid Row artists.