Our vaunted military might call these pets "collateral casualties" in the war into homelessness.
And it is an epic series of battles to stave off entry into homelessness, make no doubt about it, as people who've never before been anywhere near "homeless" now deal with the likely prospect that they are about to join the ranks of their brothers and sisters on the street.
It's amazing how much their perceptions then change about "the homeless."
I see these people every day, but by the time they get to me, the dominoes have been falling for quite some time.
Long out of gas for a vehicle with expired tags and insurance, some of these folks now walk all over Nashville, filling out job applications, turning in resumes and in their spare time, trying to find a new place that's "affordable" that they can move into - with an "understanding" landlord who will let them make payments to accrue the security deposit and last month's rent typically required.
They show up at my office with bags of laundry slung over their shoulders, praying that I can provide them with a bus pass or two so when they finish washing their clothes and grabbing a free shower they won't have to sweat themselves stinky on the way back to the few days left they have in their current home.
They can't understand why it is that we - society - doesn't have some kind of "safety net" for people who are "hardworking and drugfree" and just need a "little help" to get through a rough spot in their lives.
"I never thought it would happen to me."
"I never thought it would be this hard."
Lot's of times, they show up with their pets in tow. It's the last thing they're going to give up as they try to "downscale" into homelessness.
Some of the folks I know who are homeless still have their pets, it's the one thing that keeps them sane in an otherwise insane time.
Those who can't keep their pets cry harder over giving them up than any single other thing I've seen anyone have to leave behind as they go from housed to homelessness.
If you're reading this from the comfort of your home instead of at the public library and your pet is anywhere near you, scratch its ears and show it some love; you just don't know if - or when - you might be the next casualty in the war into homelessness....
Homeless Pets Crowd Shelters as Families Hit Hard Times
“Please Help!” begged a post from a pet owner in Carroll County, Ga., who said she had two dogs that would be homeless when her mother’s home was foreclosed on in a few weeks. “Our shelter has something like an 80 percent kill rate,” the post said. “I have exhausted every effort I know to find them a good home. No one wants a pregnant dog.”
As mounting layoffs and foreclosures have caused many middle-class Americans to lose their economic footing, some are parting with their pets, a trend that has sent a tide of displaced dogs and cats to rescue groups and county animal shelters around the country, officials said.
“One lady was crying to me today and said: ‘I’ve either got to feed my kid or feed my dog. What would you do?’ ” said Shari Johannes, owner of Dog Pack Rescue, a “no kill” shelter in Kingston, Ga., that keeps animals until they are adopted.
Like most such no-kill rescue groups in areas where foreclosures are high, Ms. Johannes, who is keeping 180 dogs on five acres, is over capacity. She will not accept any more animals, though people beg her daily to take their pets.
When no-kill rescue groups turn pets away, the last option for owners is usually a county animal shelter, which will typically euthanize animals when space runs out.
In Georgia, which ranked sixth in the nation in foreclosures in May, directors of county animal shelters reported that the number of pets surrendered by their owners spiked in the first part of the year.
The number of pets left at Henry County Animal Care and Control in McDonough, Ga., was up 71 percent for the first four months of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007, said Gerri Dueringer, the shelter’s director.
In Clayton County, 22 percent more pets were surrendered in the first part of the year compared with 2007, said Mark Thompson, a police captain and director of the animal shelter in Jonesboro, Ga.
Other areas of the country hit hard by foreclosures are seeing similar increases, said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States.
“In terms of relinquishment,
“It’s a bit of a triple whammy,” he said.
The Humane Society recently started a foreclosure fund, which offers grants of $500 to $2,000 to help nonprofit animal rescue groups weather the crisis. Since late March, when the fund was announced, 133 groups have applied for aid and 11 have been given grants.
“Obviously, it’s a crisis for local shelters; I worry about what it means for our society,” said Betsy Saul, a founder of Petfinder.com, a Web site that showcases animals for adoption at 11,000 sites in the United States.
Ms. Saul recently polled her member organizations to gauge the problem and found that half of her respondents had seen pets turned in because of home foreclosures in the last six months.
After months without construction work, Roger West of Jasper, Ga., began to miss mortgage payments. In May, he and his wife, Tammy, and their 6-year-old daughter, Macy, became the third family on their street to lose their home to foreclosure.
“The way things have fell off, we’re just praying our way through it,” Mr. West said.
Though they were able to move to a much smaller rental home, they decided that they could not afford to keep two of their three dogs, a German shepherd and a boxer.
“It’s like losing a member of the family,” said Tammy West, who is trying to find the dogs a home on the Web site Craigslist. “They’re not bad or mean or anything. They are just dogs that are going through a bad situation like we are.”
The Wests, who said they had $11 in the bank after they paid their bills recently, were able to persuade their new landlord to give them some time to find new homes for the dogs, but they know that other pet owners, and their pets, have not been so lucky.
Tracy Thompson, facility manager of the Paulding County animal shelter in Dallas, Ga., said: “We are a fast-growing county, or we were. And it kind of came to a screeching halt. We have a lot of empty construction and vacant homes around here.”
Ms. Thompson said the flood of new animals because of foreclosures had already led to an increase in euthanizations at her facility.
“Last month, we euthanized 151 animals for space,” she said. “In June, we’re already up past that.”
“We see people who are at the end of their rope,” Ms. Thompson said. “We’ve had some bring their animals in who are living in their cars, and we’re all in tears then.”
Ms. Dueringer, the Henry County shelter director, said: “You pick up the young, adult, healthy dog and its only crime is that it’s alive. And you have to put it to sleep. It’s torturous to staff. It’s heartbreaking.”
