Over the last dozen months, the soaring rate of home foreclosures has had a crippling effect on the lives of tens of thousands of Americans. Families have been forced out of their homes, men and women have lost their jobs, and bank accounts have shrunk considerably.
Humans, however, aren’t the only ones suffering from the effects of the housing market crash.
At the Santa Maria Valley Humane Society, more and more animals are being dropped off because their owners can’t afford to feed them anymore or have been forced to move into a housing situation that doesn’t allow pets.
“As more and more people become homeless, taking on a pet is a factor they can’t always handle,” said Kelly White O’Neill, executive director of the Santa Maria Valley Humane Society. “It’s very sad losing your home and a member of your family, potentially.”
Since January, about half of the people relinquishing pets to the shelter, White O’Neill said, have listed foreclosure as their main reason for not being able to care for their pet anymore.
Santa Barbara County Animal Services has seen an increase in animals since January as well, though Community Outreach Coordinator Stacy Silva said it was hard to determine the exact number of people relinquishing their pets due to foreclosure.
“We’ve definitely seen an increase in intake numbers,” Silva said. “Moving is a big reason we’ve been getting more cats and dogs.”
But cats and dogs aren’t the only animals being forced out of their homes.
“We’ve also seen an increase in the number of horses we’ve received,” she said. “We have a lot of horses and roosters that need to be adopted.”
Animals Services is also receiving other livestock, such as goats and pigs, which are even more difficult for owners to keep because they require more food and usually have more expensive needs.
“We try to keep livestock [and other large animals] for as long as we need to,” Silva said, adding that they are typically more difficult to adopt out than more home-friendly pets.
“We encourage people to look for other options than Animal Services when facing economic hardship,” she said. “People should really use us as a last resort.”
Back at the Humane Society, another trend White O’Neill has noticed is that a lot of renters are being forced out of homes that are the second homes of their owners. As the price of maintaining a home continues to skyrocket, people with multiple homes are being forced to cut their costs and reel in their business ventures.
“It’s an unprecedented time in our history,” she said, adding that in the shelter’s 26 years of serving the Santa Maria Valley area, this is the first time, on a large scale, that it’s had to deal with pets becoming homeless due to foreclosures.
Still, White O’Neill said that she prefers to stay positive.
“I like to think that we’re a bright spot in an otherwise dark time because when owners bring in their pet, they don’t have to worry about it being euthanized,” she said. “They know it’s going to get taken care of until another family can adopt it.”
On top of more people bringing in their pets, the shelter has seen quite a few people coming in asking for help feeding their animals. As people are forced to limit their spending, pet food has become more of luxury, White O’Neill said. It’s a luxury, however, that’s necessary for survival.
Right now, the shelter has only enough food to feed its animals-in-residence, but come fall, staffers plan to start running a food bank drive for local pets.
While several big-name donators, such as Target, Wal-Mart, and PetSmart, have consistently come through with food, White O’Neill said that the shelter is still in need.
“The last thing we want is for a pet to come here. If we can help pet owners keep their pets by helping them feed them, we’d much rather do that than take the pet from them,” she said.
Contact Staff Writer Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 24-31, 2008.