Chronic Homelessness, Substance Abuse, and Animals in Crisis

Last week, I asked the question, “Can homeless people properly care for pets?” In the past, I would have said, Yes. I no longer believe that is true.

As I explained in the article, almost 30 years ago, the shelter where I worked had a program to care for the pets of homeless people. We provided free sterilization, free food, free medical care, free advocacy with government agencies, and occasionally, free boarding during periods of hospitalization or even incarceration. It was not without its detractors. Some people complained we were legitimizing the idea that homeless people should have pets. But as I argued, it wasn’t that simple.

While we required that all the animals we adopted go to people living in homes or apartments, these were animals that were already living with people who were homeless, some of whom had lived with them before their circumstances changed. And regardless of what people thought was ideal, the animals were there, and we wanted to take care of them.

Since then, various studies have concluded that homeless people have a “strong, unyielding bond with their animal companions that over-rides personal needs.” These studies have also concluded that caring for animals is often the primary motivation to helping people “move out of homelessness, thus encouraging responsibility.” Finally, these studies report that animals “decrease lapses into unsafe behavior, such as that associated with drugs and alcohol.”

I then asked if this was the norm. Or whether these studies were being published by academics, clouded by confirmation bias, seeing what they want to see? And whether, in reality, the pets of chronically homeless people were disproportionately suffering?

Although the article was part of my weekly news roundup and therefore only seven paragraphs long, I was careful to point out that, while I was skeptical of their ability to properly care for animals, it was not my intention to paint all homeless people with the same broad brush. In response to some comments suggesting I was not being fair, I wanted to explain myself more fully as to why I now conclude that chronically homeless people, as a population, cannot properly do so.

However, before I proceed, I want to clarify that I still believe services should be made available, as I did in a more limited fashion decades ago: free sterilization, vaccinations, both preventive and rehabilitative veterinary care, and pet-friendly accommodations. I likewise believe that if there is evidence of neglect or abuse, the perpetrators should be prosecuted and their animals rescued, as I explain more fully below. But I asked the question and came to the conclusion I did for three primary reasons.

First, a special report by KTLA news highlighted the harsh reality faced by dogs living in and around Skid Row, Los Angeles, a region burdened with severe homelessness. These dogs often endure neglect, abuse, and poor living conditions — they’re frequently malnourished, exposed to unsanitary environments, and sometimes overbred. Many are suffering, giving birth on sidewalks with no assistance, and dying of treatable diseases and injuries. This does not appear to be an aberration.

Second, my growing skepticism about academia as a source of truth — and thus my skepticism about the conclusions drawn in those studies about the relationship with and level of care provided by the homeless to dogs, cats, and other animals. Indeed, academia increasingly appears to be a source for ideology. This includes peer-reviewed academic journals and university presses that have published articles and books that:

• Claim that viewing animals as family members, letting them sleep in the house, providing medical care, and showing affection are “white” values, while black people treat animals “as resources, whether protective (as in guarding) or financial (as in breeding or possibly fighting)”;

• Criticize placing dogs who survived dogfighting in caring, family homes because “they were effectively segregated from Blackness”;

• Call for more animals to be killed in pounds or left on the streets instead of placed in homes, so as not to promote “settler-colonial and racist dynamics of land allocation”;

• Call for permitting dogs to be left on chains 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if they belong to black, Latino, or other non-white people;

• Call for humane societies to partner with dog fighters by providing free vaccinations for dogs who will be used as bait and ripped to shreds, rather than rescuing the dogs and having the perpetrators arrested and prosecuted;

• Promote defunding the police and releasing all prisoners convicted of animal neglect and abuse, even in cases of torture and killing, because abusers are “victims,” too;

• Criticize the use of technology, like wheelchairs, to give disabled animals mobility, claiming it “erases” disabled people;

• Defend backyard breeding as promoting “queer affiliations”;

• Advocate against rescuing and finding homes for disabled dogs because doing so stigmatizes disabled people by reinforcing “oppressive norms”;

• Call for killing dogs in pounds instead of giving them “white” names because otherwise we’d be leaning into racism; and,

• Advocate for “pansexual” relations with animals — the rape of dogs, horses, and others — in the name of “queering the human-animal bond.”

More specifically, in “Anti-Carceral Approaches to Addressing Harms Against Animals,” Kelly Montford, a professor who studies race, gender, poverty, and crime, claims that prosecuting the homeless for animal abuse criminalizes being poor. As an example, Montford writes that a police officer in Iowa City, IA, found Zeus — a dog belonging to Michael Beaver — tied up and in distress at a homeless camp.

Zeus was alone with a water bowl in extreme heat conditions and his owner, Beaver, was absent. At the veterinary hospital, Zeus’s health issues were so severe that he was euthanized. Beaver, who was later charged with and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor animal neglect, stated that he was aware Zeus was sick and attempted to have medical care provided for Zeus; however, he could not afford the $800 veterinary hospital bill.

This description is not accurate. Montford writes that “Zeus was alone with a water bowl,” implying he had access to water. In fact, the water bowl was empty, and the heat index was 111 degrees. To elicit sympathy for Beaver, she also neglected to note that Zeus had kidney disease — and that Beaver was aware of it — so water would have been especially crucial. When a dog’s kidneys are diseased, they cannot filter toxins from the blood as well as they should. To compensate, the body increases blood flow to the kidneys, resulting in the production of more urine and requiring dogs to drink more water. Zeus died of renal failure precisely because he did not have access to water, even though the homeless camp was next to the Iowa River.

If Montford were honest, she would blame Beaver for Zeus’ suffering and death because it was his fault. Beaver is a grown man who failed to provide what Zeus needed and knowingly failed to protect him from harm. Indeed, he caused it. While states should provide veterinary and other services for free, as I have argued repeatedly elsewhere — and Montford later admits those services were available — a “failure to afford” defense to animal cruelty would subjugate the rights of animals to the interests of the people they are connected to and reaffirm their status as “property” which Montford decries as it relates to other animals, including animals raised and killed for food. In addition to his poverty, Montford says that Beaver should not have been prosecuted because he “depended on Zeus for emotional support,” but that, too, is an effort to subjugate Zeus’ health and safety to Beaver’s interest in “emotional support.” Zeus isn’t a “thing,” like a comfort blanket. Academic illusions to the contrary, we must protect and rescue animals from abuse because that is what these animals are facing. And regardless of housing status, those who mistreat animals must be held accountable.

Third, and more importantly, there appears to be a profound shift in the homeless population. In the original piece last week, I explained it summarily like this:

[D]espite what partisan policymakers want us to believe, chronic homelessness is often more about mental illness and drug abuse than poverty or cost of housing, because of existing public and private safety nets.

And if that is the case, how can someone properly care for a dog if they cannot take care of themselves? How can they provide what those animals need and deserve if they have alienated those around them, such as family and friends, who are unwilling to assist them? If L.A.’s skid row is any indication, they can’t.

As even a cursory review of HUD data and trends demonstrates, chronic homelessness, meaning individuals who have a disabling condition such as mental illness or drug abuse and have been homeless for a year or more, is at an all-time high. Indeed, drug addiction, notably opioid and methamphetamine use, has become a major driver of chronic street homelessness. Especially in California cities, like San Francisco, the visible presence of homeless individuals living in tents, using drugs in public, or exhibiting symptoms of severe mental illness has increased markedly.

Whereas homelessness is typically addressed through economic aid and affordable housing, the current crisis demands robust interventions for addiction treatment and mental health care — and more insistence on behavioral expectations — which is not occurring. Who is making sure animals are being fed or getting the medical attention they need when these individuals are experiencing psychotic episodes or passed out on drugs? No one.

Pretending otherwise — pretending that chronic homeless populations are primarily people down on their luck financially, rather than a group disproportionately affected by addiction and untreated mental illness — not only makes current policies toward addressing homelessness ineffective, it also leaves animals in harm’s way.

This is not something I am willing to do. And this is why I answered the question in the negative.

What to do about it — how to protect those animals — is a more challenging question. As one of my astute readers pointed out last week, “Focusing on animal welfare makes it critically important to conduct outreach into the communities of greatest need, from spaying and neutering to training and to remove animals when the deprivation of proper care includes cruelty. That is when one is supposed to call local shelters. Public shelters are charged with animal protection, but what if the shelter itself is unsafe for animals?” I will tackle this question in a subsequent article, careful not to suggest taking animals out of the proverbial frying pan and throwing them into the fire.