Our Mission: To help transform the social and economic conditions in South LA that foster addiction, crime, violence and poverty by building a community institution that involves thousands in creating, influencing and changing public policy. Who We Are: Community leaders, including U.S. Congresswoman Karen Bass, 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 our community.