When evictions loom, pets are also at risk in the US

When Esther Deshommes moved her family halfway across the country in June, she never considered leaving their two cats behind.

Deshommes, 36, is a tutor; her husband is a barber. Both lost their jobs early on in the pandemic, and with savings drying up decided to move with their three children from Rockland County, New York, to stay with family in St. Louis.

But they hit a snag: Deshommes’ stepfather is allergic to Nova and Luna Bear, their two tabby cats, and pet-friendly apartments in St. Louis that were within the family’s budget of $1,100 per month were limited.

“My 6-year-old looked at me, crying,” Deshommes said, “and he said, ‘Mom, you don’t leave family behind.’”

Pet adoptions reached an all-time high in the United States in the early months of the pandemic, with animal foster applications increasing 500% in some cities. Many animal shelters were cleared out completely.

“I don’t think we’ve seen people open their homes to shelter and foster animals like this ever before,” said Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. “It felt unprecedented.”

But despite the surge in pandemic puppies, anti-pet policies at most rental apartments have held firm, particularly for those available to lower-income renters. Ten months into the pandemic, there’s a tremendous housing crisis afoot that could affect both two- and four-legged residents. Without another extension on a federal eviction moratorium, nearly 40 million Americans could face eviction by the end of January, and with them, millions of pets are at risk of being surrendered to shelters.

“There are 173 million pets in American homes,” said Julie Castle, CEO of animal welfare organization Best Friends Animal Society. “If you have 30 or 40 million Americans at risk of losing their homes, well, do the math. We could be staring down a really bad situation with people being forced to choose between their home and their pet.”

The Deshommes family story has a happy ending: Nova and Luna Bear went to a foster home organized by the Animal Protective Association of Missouri, and the family eventually found an affordable apartment and moved in, felines in tow.

But many pet-owning renters uprooted by the pandemic have had a tougher search.

Andrea Halsey lost her job as an in-home elderly care provider. With schools switched to remote learning and her fiance working long hours in construction, Halsey, 24, was unable to find a new job while caring for her sons, ages 3 and 5.

Their savings quickly dwindling, the couple decided to move from Illinois to Pennsylvania, where Halsey has family and where they believed rental costs would be cheaper. They moved in August but have yet to sign a lease and are still staying with relatives. The reason? Pet deposits and pet rent for their 43-pound Siberian husky, Jax, has made it nearly impossible for them to find a new home.

Halsey has no intention of parting with Jax. But she knows that without him, her family, whose rental budget is up to $1,000 a month, would have already found their own place. They have looked at more than 20 apartments. In several cases they were rejected when the landlord found out the weight and breed of her pet. In others, they weren’t able to come up with the required cash, which often included a pet deposit of several hundred dollars on top of a security deposit, pet rent, and first and last month’s rent.

“They’re asking us to spend close to $4,000 just to move in, and we don’t have it,” she said. Her fiance is now working six days a week as a driver for a local furniture company, often leaving home at 5 a.m. and not returning until 8 or 9 p.m. During long days alone with her two young boys, it’s Jax, she said, who has kept her grounded.

“Any time I’m having a moment and I’m crying because I can’t find a place for us to move to, he’s right there, putting his head on my lap,” she said. “I don’t think he realizes what he does for me.”

The Humane Society launched an advocacy guide, Pets Are Welcome, in 2015 to help pet owners navigate restrictions on pet ownership in rental housing and educate themselves on their rights as renters. The organization estimates that 72% of renters own pets, but until 2006, there were almost no laws on the books that protected pet owners in times of crisis.

Housing is the second-most common reason people surrender pets to shelters, ahead of financial difficulties, and they are bracing for up to 10 million pets potentially being surrendered in the early months of 2021. Animal rights activists say the $900 billion pandemic relief bill may only postpone the inevitable. What’s needed are better policies to protect pet owners who rent their homes.

After Hurricane Katrina, the federal Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act was passed, mandating that pets be allowed in shelters and emergency housing during national disasters. And while the Fair Housing Act demands that landlords provide “reasonable accommodation” for pets that serve as assistance animals, only one state — California, which passed the Pet Friendly Housing Act of 2017 — has laws on its own books allowing the state to enforce the legislation.

Vancouver, British Columbia, offers a model for how pet policies can be adapted. The Vancouver City Council in October passed a motion calling for an end to all “no pet” policies in rental contracts, a move, City Council member Jean Swanson said, that was made in response to public demand.

“Part of what I campaigned on was trying to make it so buildings would accept pets. It’s a very popular position, and the pandemic has only strengthened people’s desires to have pets,” she said.

Policymakers in the United States have yet to adopt similar measures. That doesn’t mean more pet-friendly apartments aren’t appearing on the market. They are, but they tend to be only available in certain sectors of the market.

“The newer the development, the more likely it is to be pet friendly. If you’re wealthy, it’s likely you will have access to pet-friendly housing,” said Abby Volin, president of Opening Doors, a legal firm specializing in animal accommodation law. “It’s being touted like having access to a gym or a pool.”

For renters teetering on the edge of financial crisis, an extra $100 in pet rent, or tightened parameters of breed and weight restrictions, can be enough to push a low-income tenant over the edge.

“If they’re already having trouble finding a place to live, that’s the first strike. Finding someplace affordable is the second strike. And the third strike is trying to find a place that they can move into quickly,” said Sarah Rosenberg, co-founder of Paws Between Homes, an Atlanta organization that provides temporary pet foster homes for owners facing housing instability. “That pet becomes like an albatross.”

And it’s those same pets, said Castle of Best Friends Animal Society, that have been key to protecting many people’s mental health during the pandemic, thanks to the companionship and unconditional love they provide.

“This has the markings of a really big crisis, because most Americans consider their pets family,” she said. “We’re forcing people to choose between their family member and a place to put their head.”