It’s no fur-ever home, but five units at the Uplift Families Residence shelter in the Bronx’s Castle Hill neighborhood will permit pets during stays. Urban Resource Institute (URI), the operating nonprofit, unveiled the pilot program last Thursday, May 2, in a ribbon cutting ceremony outside the facility.
“Right now pets are not allowed in shelters for families experiencing homelessness,” City Council Majority Leader Amanda Farías said during remarks. “And the forced separation is more difficult for family members of all ages to enter shelter, causing emotional trauma and prohibiting New Yorkers from seeking the help and safety net they need. Healing does not happen alone…that’s what makes pet friendly shelters like this so urgent and necessary.”
The pilot will run for six months. NYC Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park told the Amsterdam News that she sees the initiative as a building block. The Uplift Families Residence property is notably owned by URI through the city’s investment, cutting out the red tape nonprofit shelters often face with leasing to tackle residents’ needs efficiently. But in the meantime, the pilot tackles how the department can keep pets and their owners together during crises while also respecting the needs of other shelter residents.
“We’re really looking toward how URI does manage to respect the needs of [both] families with pets [and] those without,” Wasow Park said. “And how they address challenges that may come up with an animal that hasn’t been trained or isn’t vaccinated, how we manage the tensions that come up between two animals that, say, don’t get along. There’s a lot to be learned.”
Uplift Families Residence is the first New York City family shelter to adopt such arrangements. The pilot stems from URI’s decade-old PALS program, which implemented such pet-friendly policies at the URI-run, city-backed shelters, encouraging survivors to seek shelter without leaving their animals behind or in boarding.
In 2021, URI and the National Domestic Violence Hotline found 97% of domestic violence survivors considered keeping pets “an important factor in seeking shelter.” Around half said they would refuse shelter without their pet. So far, the PALS program has temporarily housed more than 575 pet owners and 775 pets.
Inside the Uplift Families Residence, units are prepped for residents, whether they walk upright or on all fours. Feeding bowls, chew toys and a big bag of kibble are neatly arranged in one room while a litter box and scratching post are ready to go in another. But the program isn’t limited to just furry friends; PALS has accommodated reptiles and birds in the past, often providing the terrariums and husbandry required for exotic pets.
It means so much to New Yorkers that they don’t have to leave their pets behind during this time of crisis,” URI CEO Nathaniel Fields told the AmNews. “[If] people who are experiencing housing insecurity need a safe place, they can now bring their pets with them. We all know during COVID, pet adoption went up. During times of crisis, we need our pets even more to provide that comfort and sense of well-being.
Shelter staff added that by keeping pets in human shelters prevents overcrowding in animal shelters, protecting New York’s status as a no-kill state.
According to shelter staff, there will be little interaction between the pets and other residents inside the building, since every neighbor may not be an animal person. Notices inform residents which units are participating in the PALS program, with additional signage posted about expectations for residing pet owners and safety tips for children on interacting with animals.
Author’s Note: Field’s quote and the sentence about red tape was modified after publish for clarity, particularly to specify the city’s full financial back to the shelters.
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.