COVID-19 impacted everyone this year - humans and animals alike

By Karen E. Lange

Things were looking good for Earlene* at the start of 2020. She had a job at Macy’s in Atlanta and a rental house with enough

space for her teenage son, daughter and their three dogs — with plans to save enough to soon buy a place of their own.

Then, in March, COVID-19 struck, putting Earlene out of a job and upending her housing arrangement with her landlord. Before she knew it, she was packing up parts of her life for storage and wondering what to do about her dogs: a Yorkie named Sage, a Lab-pit bull mix named Pearlie and a boxer named Falcon. Facing limited housing options that accommodated her dogs, she considered sleeping in her car.

“Hard times, that’s putting it lightly,” Earlene says. “People are gouging you. They know you’re desperate.”

Enter: Paws Between Homes, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that arranged fosters for Sage and Pearlie and a 90-day kennel spot for the more rambunctious Falcon. This enabled Earlene and her children a temporary stay with relatives while Cole Thaler, housing attorney and founder of Paws Between Homes, searched for dog-friendly rentals and brought Pearlie and Sage for visits.

Thanks to support and assistance from the nonprofit, Earlene and her family — dogs included — moved into a four-bedroom outside Atlanta in October.

Pets bring comfort and joy to their families, especially during a crisis. Pets for Life, a program of the Humane Society of the United States, works in underserved communities around the country to provide pet food and supplies so that people and their companion animals can stay together. 
During the coming months, millions of pet owners just like Earlene are likely to find themselves in similar situations, as federal, state and local pandemic eviction moratoriums expire and unemployment and rental assistance are exhausted.

With many staring down a tsunami of late fees, back rent owed and possible evictions, the Humane Society of the United States’ Pets for Life program is preparing by working with local animal welfare groups to keep people and their pets together.

As paychecks disappear and jobs dry up, many people are discovering they’re just one crisis away from not being able to afford resources for their pets. Working together, the Humane Society of the United States and local groups are helping to prevent an even more widespread access-to-care crisis. (Photo by Erica Ojeda/Yakima Humane Society)
“We are in a unique position,” says Amanda Arrington, senior director of Pets for Life, which provides support services to pet owners in 50 underserved communities across the country — directly and through local partners. “If we want to keep pets in their homes, we have to keep people in their homes.”

To that end, the HSUS is working with the animal welfare community to help empower pet owners facing eviction. In addition to webinars and online toolkits, Pets for Life and its allies connect tenants to legal help, temporary housing for themselves and their pets; arrange short-term foster care; pay pet fees for renters; and provide supplies and veterinary care.

During the pandemic, the Humane Society of the United States has provided support to pet owners in places ranging from city neighborhoods in Philadelphia to some of the remotest villages in Alaska, and from a homeless encampment in Los Angeles to Native American land in Montana and Minnesota. 
It’s all in a (pre-pandemic) day’s work, too, as Pets for Life has long operated in underserved communities around the country to facilitate veterinary services and provide pet supplies at no cost to families who can’t otherwise access them.

Yet as the eviction crisis looms, the work looks different. Contactless drop-offs and text message exchanges have replaced the door-to-door, face-to-face approach that’s endured for more than 10 years.

Pets bring comfort and joy to their families, especially during a crisis. Pets for Life, a program of the Humane Society of the United States, works in underserved communities around the country to provide pet food and supplies so that people and their companion animals can stay together. (Photo by Nicole Rosenberg)
The goal, though, remains the same: Keep pets in their homes, with the families who love them.

This winter will test the capacity of programs like Pets for Life, local shelters, animal welfare organizations and other groups in their shared mission to keep animals with their families. Much depends on the willingness of the housing industry to waive or eliminate pet fees — as well as breed and pet restrictions — Arrington says, as families hang in the balance.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: Pet owners hit hardest by COVID-19 will soon be facing immense financial barriers to veterinary access and other animal care services. They need your help. Go to humanesociety.org to help keep people and pets together.
Helping animals around the world

The need to act doesn’t stop at the border, either.

Two weeks into India’s lockdown, with temperatures reaching 115, the country’s street dogs grew increasingly thirsty, emaciated and malnourished. While some community caregivers gave what they could to local animals, others, fearing viral infection from strays, wanted the dogs removed from the streets.

Approximately 35 million dogs live on the streets of India. Humane Society International is working to control the population by providing sterilizations, vaccinations and other aid to improve the animals’ welfare. (Photo by Mayur Waghela/For HSI)
Thanks to a $1 million grant from Mars, Incorporated, Humane Society International (HSI), the global partner of the HSUS, has provided emergency aid to more than 125,000 cats, dogs and other companion animals in 28 countries to date.

Such grant support helped HSI feed street dogs, care for shelter animals and assist owners with companion animals all around the world — reaching 6,500 cats and dogs a day and serving more than 250,000 meals in five cities in India alone.

During the pandemic, HSI is providing emergency care to India’s cats and dogs with the help of a grant from Mars, Incorporated. 
“Here it is lockdown, and our teams are going out,” says Keren Nazareth, deputy director of HSI/Asia. “At a time when communities were struggling, we were able to say, ‘You are not alone.’”

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*Last name withheld for privacy reasons.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: Learn more about HSI and its lifesaving work at hsi.org.

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Photo Credit: sarandy westfall Unsplash