L’Arche communities have begun springing up around the world.  In 1964 Jean Vanier invited 2 men with disabilities to leave the institution they were living in, to come live with him.  He shifted his perspective from being able to help the men, to being able to learn from them and enter into true community with them, and it changed his life.  Vanier still makes his home in a L’Arche community in France, and other communities have followed because the power behind the communities.

L’Arche communities are family-like homes where people with and without disabilities share their lives together, give witness to the reality that persons with disabilities possess inherent qualities of welcome, wonderment, spirituality, and friendship.

Perhaps an extraordinary notion in our fast-paced and consumer-driven society, L’Arche believes that these qualities, expressed through vulnerability and simplicity, actually make those with a disability our real teachers about what is most important in life: to love and to be loved.

From the first community begun in France in 1964, many communities have developed in various cultural and religious traditions around the world. The first L’Arche community in the United States was founded in 1972 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Today, L’Arche USA has 16 communities and two projects nationwide.