[1][2] Founded in 1964 by Jean Vanier, Raphaël Simi, and Philip Seux, L'Arche emerged as a reaction and community-based alternative to the ill-treatment and dismal living conditions in the psychiatric institutions of the 1960s.

Its communities, founded on covenant relationships between people of differing intellectual capacity, social origin, religion and culture, seek to be signs of unity, faithfulness and reconciliation.

In March 2008, the international councils of L'Arche and another organization for disabled people founded by Vanier, Faith and Light, met for the first time in joint meeting in Lviv, Ukraine.

[17][18] In February 2020, L'Arche published the results of an investigation which found that Vanier had engaged in "manipulative and emotionally abusive" sexual relationships with six women between 1970 and 2005, under the guise of giving spiritual guidance.

[19][20] In response, the organisation stated "we are shocked by these discoveries and unreservedly condemn these actions, which are in total contradiction with the values Jean Vanier claimed and are incompatible with the basic rules of respect and integrity of persons, and contrary to the fundamental principles on which L'Arche is based".