Skid Row Music Engagement Training

Access to tech and creative industry employment

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Skid Row has one of the highest percentages of unhoused individuals in the nation, with ~45% of the population unsheltered and 40% experiencing chronic homelessness. Median income is $12,070, far below the county average of $67,418. Countless studies have shown homelessness is directly linked with higher rates of mental illness, with 36% of Skid Row inhabitants reporting serious mental illness (Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority 2022 Homeless Count). With continued increases in homelessness across L.A. County, including in Downtown L.A., now more than ever, our community needs unique interventions—like Urban Voices Project’s arts programming—to ensure these Angelenos can access crucial mental and physical health and social services. “When I stopped creating when I was homeless, I was hopeless,” said Iron Donato. “Everything just started to go down, down, down. It was a spiral into the hellhole of Skid Row.”

Urban Voices Project (UVP) amplifies artistic expression in Downtown L.A., particularly Skid Row, to improve mental and physical wellness and strengthen social networks among people marginalized by homelessness, mental health challenges, and unemployment. 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 further 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.”
The proposed Skid Row Music Engagement Training program will pilot new supports for those facing homelessness like Iron by providing training in utilizing music-centered engagement as a restorative practice for vulnerable populations. We aim to train Skid Row community members—those with a lived experience of homelessness and/or those who work or advocate in the area—as well as L.A. music professionals, teaching artists, and wellness practitioners as part of their continuing education/professional development.

Urban Voices Project’s (UVP) Music Engagement Training program will improve Skid Row’s community and economic development, as well as wellbeing and resilience by providing jobs in the creative industry that directly support those facing homelessness, health challenges, and unemployment. From October 2024 to October 2025, this program will train an estimated 50 individuals—strengthening leadership avenues for UVP participants and building capacity for program expansion. Training additional facilitators will allow UVP to offer more group singing activities, compensate musicians and choir members for their work—essential to our efforts in community outreach and visibility for the Skid Row population—and eventually 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 inhabitants.

With more facilitators, Urban Voices Project (UVP) aims to serve 500 total unduplicated individuals—and reach an audience of 15,000 (3,000 through this project)—in 2024-25 through our programs. Through internal surveys and quarterly forums, we will measure a variety of participant-reported health and wellness outcomes, including feelings of social-emotional wellbeing, connection, and mental health. We will seek regular input from facilitator trainees throughout the grant period to adapt curriculum to best meet community needs. Many of UVP’s participants continue with our programming after finding housing, and we frequently hear about the transformational effects group singing has had on participants’ mental and physical health, sense of purpose, and community. Ande shared, “I’m so thankful to have been able to perform with all of the support and help and love. … There’s nothing I can say about how precious it is for us to have a voice, to share that voice, and have that voice heard.”