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Keeping our community alive, safe, and connected

CHPLA is a community-run organization, founded by and for people who use substances. We were LA's first needle exchange, and more than 30 years later we're still here, filling gaps within the system with care that meets people exactly where they're at.

Not new to this, true to this

We started in MacArthur Park, and we never left. CHPLA grew out of ACT UP LA — artists, activists, and people who use substances who were tired of watching their friends die while the government did nothing. That's still who we are.

Clean Needles Now

Clean Needles Now (CNN) is founded by ACT UP activists, Renee Edgington and Joshua Wells in response to the HIV/AIDs crisis. It began in a living room with volunteers packing kits with clean needles, bleach, and condoms before any of it was legal.

We Did It Anyway

Clashes with police and city officials came with the territory. We kept showing up, and made the public case that clean needles keep people alive.

Out of the Shadows

Syringe exchange became legal in California. We opened a drop-in in Hollywood, Harm Reduction Central, where people could come in, sit down, and be treated like a person.

Naloxone Enters the Picture

Before most of the county caught on, we started getting naloxone, the overdose-reversal medication, into the hands of the people most likely to need it.

Becoming CHPLA

Working alongside LA County, Clean Needles Now grew into Community Health Project Los Angeles. Same mission, wider reach.

Naloxone for Everyone

California legalized wider naloxone distribution and added Good Samaritan protections, so anyone could respond to an overdose without fear. We’d been ready for years.

Overdose Work Becomes Its Own Program

The naloxone work we’d been doing for years grew into OEND, Overdose Education & Naloxone Distribution, a partnership with LA County that now reaches far beyond our own routes.

Not New to This, True to This

More than 30 years on, we’re still on the same routes, still showing up. We started in MacArthur Park, and we never left.

What we mean when we talk about love

Our values are inspired by bell hooks definition of love as written in Communion: The Female Search for Love

“love as a combination of trust, commitment, care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility”

That's the standard we hold for our community, and for each other.

  • Trust

    Relationships are built at the speed of trust. We earn it, and we keep it.

  • Commitment

    These are our people. We're here for the long run.

  • Care

    Care without judgment means meeting people where they are in their lives.

  • Respect

    Honoring everyone's privacy, freedom, and choice.

  • Knowledge

    We share what we know so the community can act on its own wellbeing.

  • Responsibility

    We believe in people's resilience and right to direct their own lives.

Help meet the needs of our community

Your donation puts more resources, more naloxone, and more health education out into the community, keeps our outreach vans running, and helps our team keep showing up. Thank you for being part of it.

Donate to CHPLA