VOCAL-US

VOCAL-US is a national organization, and the infrastructure hub for the VOCAL family of state-based organizations in New York, Kentucky, and Texas.

Founded in 1999, VOCAL-NY is a state membership organization that builds power among low-income people affected by HIV/AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration, and homelessness in order to create healthy and just communities. We accomplish this through community organizing, leadership development, advocacy, direct services, participatory research and direct action.

VOCAL-US was founded in 2022, and launched its first expansion project VOCAL-KY that same year. In 2023, we launched VOCAL-TX.

Our Vision

VOCAL is building a movement of low-income people dedicated to ending the AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and homelessness. We fight for systemic change rooted in justice, compassion, and love. We approach this work with a firm belief in reducing harm and ending stigma, and the knowledge that the issues impacting our communities are driven by institutional oppression, not personal failings. Our campaigns have saved or improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people across the country.

Our model of movement building draws inspiration from three traditions: (1) traditional community-based organizing, (2) direct-action AIDS activism, and (3) Black-led social movements for racial justice. Above all, we work with the knowledge that abolishing systemic poverty and injustice will only be done by building the leadership and power of the most marginalized among us.