VOCAL-TX is an advocacy group focused on issues such as AIDS, the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and homelessness. The group claims these issues are due to “institutional oppression.” ¹ It spun off from the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance ² and its sister organizations are VOCAL-NY, VOCAL-KY, and the Vocal Action Fund. ³

In August 2024, VOCAL-TX advocated for the Austin City Council to spend over $10 million on three measures providing services for homeless people in Austin. ⁴ The group also spearheaded opposition to the Austin City Council amending land-development codes to allow for the construction of three units on lots zoned for single-family homes in 2023. ⁵

Background

Mark Kinzly and Joy Rucker founded the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance (THRA) in 2019, after unprecedented opioid overdose rates. Three years later, THRA created an organizing project modeled after VOCAL-NY. ⁶ On August 8, 2023, the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance announced that the project, called VOCAL-TX, was spinning off to be its own organization on August 31, 2023. ⁷

VOCAL-TX’s “model of movement building” has three pillars: Black-led social movements for racial justice, direct-action AIDS activism, and traditional community-based organizing. ⁸

Finances

As of August 2024, VOCAL-TX has not operated independently for long enough to have publicly available tax forms. However, the Heising-Simons Foundation granted $100,000 in 2023 to VOCAL-NY earmarked for VOCAL-TX. ⁹ The Ford Foundation also granted $200,000 in 2023 to VOCAL-NY earmarked for “core support for VOCAL-TX to build a people’s movement among low-income people to end AIDS, homelessness, mass incarceration and the war on drugs.” ¹⁰

Leadership

Mark Kinzly and Joy Rucker founded Texas Harm Reduction Alliance in 2019. Kinzly died on July 9, 2022. ^{11 12} He had been in recovery after abusing opioids for 23 years. ¹³ He worked on a needle exchange program van in Bridgeport, Connecticut and was instrumental in Connecticut’s first community naloxone distribution program. ¹⁴ Later, he worked for a needle exchange program in Austin. ¹⁵

Joy Rucker co-founded the Black Harm Reduction Network and had been a national harm reduction consultant for over 25 years, as of April 2023. She has worked with the homeless, people with HIV, and people with mental health and substance use issues. ¹⁶

VOCAL-TX’s website lists four staff members: Eli Cortez, Cate Graziani, JJ Ramirez and Paulette Soltani. ¹⁷

Cortez describes himself on his LinkedIn as a “PIC abolitionist,” referring to the “Prison Industrial Complex.” He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Texas. ¹⁸

Cate Graziani was listed as Texas Harm Reduction’s Alliance on a tax form for THRA’s fiscal year ending in August 2022. ¹⁹ THRA announced Graziani’s departure from the organization in a tweet on April 6, 2023. ²⁰

Policy Issues

VOCAL-TX advocates for policies including a free transportation program for the homeless in Austin, repealing Texas’s camping ban, and ending homeless encampment sweeps. The group also opposes Austin Police Department’s partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety. ²¹

VOCAL-TX claims that Operation Lone Star, a Texas state initiative to curb illegal immigration and smuggling, “targets Black and Brown communities for arrest, jail, and deportation.” ^{22 23}

VOCAL-TX endorsed Grassroots Leadership’s 2025 Community Investment Budget, which requested that the Austin City Council prioritize “BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] led & served organizations” in the name of “equitable resource support.” Line items included $1 million for a Tenant Relocation Assistance Program, $10 million allocated for Emergency Rental Assistance, Eviction Defense, and Tenant Legal and Support Services, $1.335 million for Implementation of the Austin Climate Equity Plan, and $800,000 for an Equity Office. ²⁴

In August 2024, VOCAL-TX advocated for Austin’s City Council to spend over $10 million on three measures providing services for homeless people in Austin. ²⁵ The group called the Supreme Court’s June 2024 ruling allowing cities to enforce camping bans “unsurprising but shameful,” and said that the ruling “punish[es] people for being poor.” ²⁶

In 2023, the group opposed Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool’s Home Options for Mobility and Equity Initiative (HOME) which would have changed land development codes to allow for the construction of three units on lots that were zoned for single-family homes. VOCAL-TX joined a coalition of organizations spearheading opposition to the initiative. ²⁷

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