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Ruby Independent Advocacy
R.I.A Tucson
Hi! I'm Victoria!
I started Ruby Independent Advocacy in December of 2025! I have spent years working as an Outreach Worker, Case Manager and Community Advocate both professionally as well as in Mutual Aid settings. Every single day I had the thought "We need to do this so differently". Advocacy and relationship building are two things I excel at and I truly love this community with my whole heart. This is work I do and have done for years on my own. However, I have never been able to give it my full attention due to my professional work. Now I am trying something different. I am throwing all my energy into creating and maintaining something that is so needed, so appreciated and so rare. I hope to begin operating officially in early Feb 2026!
Trust Matters
Housing, court compliance, healthcare access, and benefits navigation all depend on trust between clients and providers. When that trust is missing or repeatedly disrupted, people disengage.
Ruby recognizes that trust is vital infrastructure. Without it, services fail. With it, people are far more likely to remain engaged, meet requirements, and move toward stability.
Movement
Ruby moves throughout the community - navigating obstacles and building lasting connections with individuals seeking help. Ruby is not a large agency. It is an independent project led by a mutual aid minded single advocate (for now).
Why should I help?
The Ruby Pilot is not your standard program.
This isn't another program people have to “qualify” for.
This is something new.
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Ruby was created and is run by a real community member who has spent years doing this work on the ground, not from behind a desk. Ruby was created with the acknowledgement that it takes an alternative, flexible approach that prioritizes trust and real-life problem-solving to help this community thrive. Ruby exists because the system often fails people who need steady advocacy the most. This model was built to meet that gap.
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Your community funding would go directly toward sustaining this work in real time, making it possible to support more people consistently and prevent them from falling through the cracks.
Success
We want to see people succeed. Usual success metrics (while sometimes necessary) leave a lot of context out. What does it look like to succeed? Is this person truly stable, independent or feel supported? We will be using both standard and alternative success metrics to define how we did. Each week, surveys will be done in person, openly and honestly with the people Ruby serves. These surveys will be transparently posted online for others to see.