Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (CoCo) -Los Angeles, CA
Community leaders founded Community Coalition as a non-profit organization in 1990 in response to the 1980's crack cocaine epidemic that devastated South LA. The goal was to provide preventative community-centered solutions to the drug problem.
Community Coalition works with African American and Latino residents to build a prosperous and healthy South LA with safe neighborhoods, quality schools, a strong social safety net and positive economic development in order to reduce crime, poverty and substance abuse in their community.
As a Communities Creating Healthy Environments grantee, Community Coalition will build on their long and successful track record of policy wins including the first ever moratorium on fast food restaurants and a recent win to establish the area’s only accessible park for disabled children (an oft ignored but significant segment in communities of color). Community Coalition’s efforts will focus on three areas: developing a model healthy school policy at Fremont High School that includes changes in food service, recreation and access to care (including mental health and counseling); expansion of youth recreation access including disabled youth; and addressing economic development and planning policy to limit negative uses and expand healthy food access in South Los Angeles.
