To support AGENTS & ASSETS: A National Residency Performance Project which seeks to give voice to the people whose communities have been most devastated by drugs and counterproductive drug policies. The Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) was founded seventeen years ago in acknowledgement of the inherently social process of theater. The organization has historically used theater with other means of public education, organizing, partnering and activism to call attention to the plight of the poor. With Agents and Assets, LAPD has initiated a national theater project that puts day to day experiences in a larger social and political context while exposing the root causes and policies that help perpetuate poverty. LAPD has toured Agents and Assets and does workshops with local theater and social justice organizations that also stimulate awareness and organizing around policies affecting drug offenders. This project builds networks of project participants and organizers in different parts of the country who are concerned about the impact of drug policies on communities. In 2002, LAPD conducted a residency and production in Detroit. In 2003-2004, LAPD will begin identifying partners and conduct a residency and production in Cleveland, Ohio. LAPD will also return to Detroit and South Central Los Angeles to build on work undertaken in 2002-2003.