Hi, and welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host, Dr. G, and our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan. Today we're gonna be talking about a really great program that I'm excited to share with everybody. So I'm going to start by introducing our guest, Garrett Parsons Pet Support Director for Found House Interfaith Housing Network. Thanks so much, Garrett, for being here, for joining us and for sharing what you do.

Hey, Dr. G. Thanks so much for having me. Can't wait to be here.

So let's start with just sharing your story because uh, I met for our listeners. I met Garrett a few weeks ago during an open house, and I was just really excited to learn about all the things that they, they offer. So I want him to share not just what they do, but also kind of your experiences and what brought you to where you're at today.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, our story is a really unique one, and I think my own personal story is, is pretty unique as well. Um, so I'm a social worker. I'm a licensed social worker. Now. I went to the University of Cincinnati and I got my Bachelor's of social work in 2016. Uh, and that's when I learned about found House Interfaith Housing Network. Uh, at the time we had a different name. We were known as, uh, Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Cincinnati. Um, we're a homeless services agency that's been in Cincinnati since 1991, uh, providing emergency shelter for families in the greater Cincinnati area. Um, I was an intern my final year, uh, pursuing my B S W at uc, and that's when I learned about Found House. Uh, I had my internship here and that led me to the pet support program. So I learned that, at the time, IHN had this program where if a family came to our front doors, uh, seeking shelter for themselves, if they had an animal, that animal could also stay with us. So when I arrived on site, I saw that we had a couple dog kennels and a couple cat kennels, and I learned that the program existed so that families didn't have to choose between surrendering their animal and entering a shelter for themselves to seek services for themselves to eventually get back on their feet and be self-sufficient again. So I thought that was pro, that program was really cool. I, um, I hadn't heard of anything like it. I have been an animal lover almost my whole life as far as back as I can remember. Um, and I was pursuing my social work degree, so it kind of seemed like a great way to combine my interests, social work and animal welfare. Um, so I learned a little bit about the program and I, I called a lot of other shelters across the country offering a similar model of sheltering animals for families that were experiencing homelessness. And then eventually I graduated and it turned into a part-time job, a part-time job at Found House, um, essentially expanding our program to the Greater Cincinnati area. So we wanted to make sure that families seeking shelter for themselves, um, or pet owners, that our pet owners did not have to choose between surrendering their animal to an animal shelter so they themselves could go into a homeless shelter, um, or just remaining homeless because they did not want to surrender their animal. And I find that a lot of the times that is the case when I'm working with pet owners, we didn't want that to be a barrier for pet owners, um, lower income, vulnerable pet owners in our community. So when I started as a part-time person, the goal was to expand, to seek, um, or to serve families outside of just IHN's emergency shelter. We wanted to serve pet owners seeking shelter at any of the homeless shelters in the greater Cincinnati area. So we learned how to run an animal shelter, and we did it really slowly and it took a long time. Um, fortunately we only started with a couple animals, dog, two cat, two dogs, couple cats. Um, I, I learned from veterinarians, from different animal welfare conferences. We established partnerships with our spay neuter clinics, our vaccine clinics. Um, a big one being UCAN here in Cincinnati. They've been a huge partner of ours to this day. Just in, in learning what was required, um, from ave a veterinary perspective, a medical's perspective to to house animals in the same place, uh, in kennels. Um, we had to recruit a lot of volunteers and train them on how to properly care for animals. Um, if we're housing 10 dogs for owners who are scattered all across the city, It's not feasible for them to come to our shelter every single day and provide the care for 'em. So we needed someone to do that, which is why we recruited so many volunteers, the majority of them coming from University of Cincinnati. Um, we established partnerships so that we could stock our shelter. So, In the span of, of, of a couple years, we were really able to grow our shelter into kinda like a mini animal shelter, um, where every animal has an owner out in the community that's trying to get back on their feet. Um, so our mantra at Found House is, is to keep families together. And I think that we do that on a daily basis by making sure that families don't have to surrender their pet to seek services for themselves. Um, and families can access services without their family being torn apart. So tho that's what I'm gonna talk about a lot today, and that's the main focus of, of the why, the why we do what we do. Um, but we grew over the years, so I've been in this role for the past seven years. We've gone through a lot of different expansions. In 2020, we were able to double our capacity to make sure that we were able to meet the need even more. But still to this day, we're not even close. Um, and we can talk about that a little bit later. Um, in addition to serving pet owners that are, uh, without housing, that are on the streets or couch surfing that are experiencing homelessness, we also work with owners that are hospitalized. We work with owners that are in rehabilitation programs. We work with owners that are incarcerated. Um, so in addition to those three crises, um, homelessness kind of being the fourth, we see all of those different situations as experiences that pet owners go through, that people go through. Um, but pet owners have the scenario that they don't have a lot of the time somewhere for their animal to go. Um, so a lot of people won't seek medical treatment. A lot of people will end up surrendering their animals in order to, uh, go into the hospital. Or some people don't have a choice if they're getting arrested and they're, and they're not quite sure where their animal's gonna end up or if they're gonna be able to get their animal back. So our goal is to work with the, the most vulnerable pet owners in our area to make sure that the family doesn't have to separate, um, We are at a point where we're able to work with a couple hundred animals every single year, and we're hoping to grow even more, but that's a little bit about what we do.

That's amazing, and it's so important because, I'm interested in forensics and I deal with a lot of issues with animal cruelty and neglect. And one of those topics becomes around domestic violence and how individuals use the, the animals to control their victims. And it is a really sad reality that so many victims will not leave unless they know where they can take their pets. And sadly, there are so many shelters that do not provide that assistance for the pet owners. Is that something that you guys work with as far as victims of domestic violence within your shelter?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked. 'cause I did, I did not include that in that list. We do work with, uh, domestic violence survivors that are pet owners, um, making sure that their animals are cared for. So we do take those calls. We do work with those pet owners. We do shelter those pets. Um, we're fortunate in Hamilton County, in the Cincinnati area to have one domestic violence shelter in Northern Kentucky, the Ion Center, they, uh, have their own pet protection program. Uh, they started it a couple, a handful of years ago, I think a couple years after we got started. So they will also shelter pets, um, not just for pet owners that are, uh, experiencing domestic violence in their shelter, but, um, DV survivors out in the community as well. They'll work with those animals. Um, and then the Hamilton County Domestic Violence Shelter, which is the Y W C A of Hamilton County, they are building a new facility that will be pet friendly. Um, so they don't have that yet, but we do have a partnership with them. So we're able to make sure that the appropriate referrals come to us. Um, and we have, uh, partners to make sure that these families don't have to separate.

And it's great you guys being social workers that I imagine that that's very beneficial as far as working with these survivors and helping them move forward. The problems that they go through, it's not just from the mental problem, from being assaulted for so long, but then also trying to get them on their feet again, because sometimes they will be financially in need of the person that that is abusing them. So is that part of kind of like the overall program as far as helping them? You know, helping their animals, but then helping them get through that as well.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, first and foremost, their safety is the, the number one priority, the safety of the person, the safety of the animal. Once they're linked up with, um, a social worker at a shelter, whether it's at the Y W C A or the Ion Center or any other shelter. Um, yeah, safety is the priority. That's the first thing that you gotta cross off the list and then you kind of go from there. 'cause every situation is completely different. Everyone has different trauma. Everyone has different obstacles or barriers that they have to overcome. So as social workers, we're able to, you know, identify what those needs are, identify what the, the, the client's goals are to make sure that, you know, what is that road to, to safety, to self-sufficiency. How are they getting back on their feet? And how can we best assist them in getting back on their feet?

I was speaking the other day with Alicia Kennedy, who is a veterinarian from Australia, and she has a special interest in the elderly population. Mm-hmm. And I was talking to her about how sometimes these elderly people, the animals are their only companions, right. Their family have kind of, Set 'em aside and their, and their dog or cat, uh, or dogs and cats are the ones that are keeping them company. And they are often afraid to go to the doctor themselves, either because of the expenses, but because of nobody's gonna be there to take care of their, of their animals. Right. If they're, if they're gone. Is that something that you guys also manage?

Yeah, so we get those calls all the time and, and generally the calls that we get come from the social workers or the nurses at the hospital where the, the, the, the pet owner actually decided to go to the hospital, um, because they needed it, you know, it might've been an emergency. Um, or, uh, there was some, yeah, there was some sort of incident back at home and they had, they were taken to the, the hospital in, in an ambulance. Um, so their animal is left at home, so a lot of the calls we get are the pet owner is already at the hospital and the animal's back at home. So then we have to navigate, okay, how are we getting this animal? You know, are we calling the landlord? How are we meeting the owner? Are we going straight to the hospital? I actually brought in a rabbit today. Uh, this is interesting timing. I, I brought in a rabbit today who's owner is at the hospital because she had had an accident and the rabbit was left alone in the apartment for a little too long. So we were able to get involved. And fortunately the rabbit's healthy and doing very well, but you know, we kind of had to do just boots on the ground work. We went to the hospital, we did an intake with the owner. We learned about their rabbit. We then went to the home. We had to work with the landlord. We picked up the rabbit and then we brought it back to our facilities. Uh, and we will continue to communicate with that owner until they go from the hospital to their rehab center, and then once they get done with their rehab, they go back home. Um, the, the person that I picked up the rabbit for doesn't have friends that can care for the rabbit. They don't have family members that can care. The landlord's certainly not gonna go in once, twice a day and provide the care that that rabbit needs. So we, I don't know what would've happened had our program not been able to step in. Um, it could have ended up at an animal shelter. Or, you know, if the hospital didn't know about our resource, that rabbit might have just stayed there, um, which could have had a bad outcome. So too often do we get those calls, and those calls have only really started coming in, in the last year. As more and more hospitals and more and more social work departments at the hospitals know about our resource for their, their patients.

I'm glad that you brought up rabbits because most people just think about dogs and cats, right? And from our tour I learned that you guys do more than dogs and cats. So you wanna tell our listeners about the interesting other, yeah, species that you see?

And I think that surprises some people because yeah, dogs and cats are primarily the main form of, you know, pet that we see in this country. I mean, of course we know other pets exist, but you don't really think about those pets when you're thinking about these types of, of crises that people find themselves in. Um, which is why we take those pets in. So over the years we've had. Bearded dragons. We've had turtles, we've had fish, we've had parakeets, cockatiels. Um, we have five, uh, reptiles right now in our facilities. We've got a ball python, we have a couple orange snakes, a couple leopard geckos, um, you know, rabbits, Guinea pigs. Yeah, the list kind of goes on. Um, any pet that someone is, is able to have, we're gonna be able to make sure that that family stays together.

And then another vulnerable group would be, I would think, like the single parent with children that unfortunately sometimes has to make the decision of getting rid of a dog or living in a car with their, with their kids. Mm-hmm. And I know that while we were there, there was a lady that shared her story, uh, and it was really heart wrenching, and I would like, you know, if you know her much better than, than I do, I just listened to her story. But I would like for people to, to listen to that story because, I think there's a lot of judgment against people that sometimes that experience homelessness or that are not working. People don't think about the reasons why and the, and what happens to people that gets them into those positions, and then the needs that they get into. So if you, uh, wouldn't mind sharing her story and kind of how you guys helped her out.

Yeah, certainly. And I, I think I'll preface, you know, by speaking to. You know what I've, what I've, I've observed over the years is there's a lot of reasons that people lose their housing. There's a lot of, um, reasons and situations that lead someone to, to be homeless and have to enter a shelter or need a new place to live. And I think so often people don't realize, one, I mean, affordable housing is really hard to come by. There, there are so many people, not just pet owners, but people in general that are paying for apartments, uh, rentals that are just too expensive for them to afford. It's, I've seen so many people who are paying, whose, whose rent is more than 50% of their income, which that's not affordable. That's not maintainable. So you hear people say they're, they're one paycheck away from losing their housing, they're one paycheck away from being homeless. That, that's certainly true. Um, I think a lot of times in my experience too, is that there are so many there are so many renters out there that get taken advantage of by landlords. Um, there are so many people that don't know landlord tenant laws. They don't know as a tenant what their right is, what their rights are, what, what the laws state. So a lot of people get taken advantage of. Um, you know, crises happen. Covid has certainly shown us that, uh, People can lose their housing. You know, there's a death in the family or there's a loss of employment. So there's a lot of reasons why that happens. But the family that we met at the, um, event and that we've been working with, um, yeah, they, I mean, they fall into that category, um, could not make ends meet, eventually lost their housing. Um, it's a mother, three children and the dog. Um, and they did enter shelter here in Hamilton County and unfortunately, um, they did surrender their dog. Um, this dog was like a sibling to the kids, like a child to the mom. And I mean, she, when she told her story, she was in tears, which I think shows just how much of a bond they had, how important this animal was. I mean, the animal was a family member that was very evident. Um, they were not notified about our program and there's a lot of reasons why that happens. So no one's necessarily pointing fingers, but it was unfortunate that they did surrender the, the dog. Um, they did learn that the dog was adopted really quickly and weirdly enough, the owner kind of. It takes a little bit of joy in that one, knowing that the dog wasn't in the, in the animal shelter for that long. And, and two just, I think is a testament to how good of an owner she was. But the dog was super socialized, super friendly, um, super adoptable. So that dog is doing well as far as we know. But this family did lose that relationship. They did experience that trauma of losing that family member. So they entered shelter, um, and they did find housing. And they found housing through our housing project that we, that we own and operate. Um, and as soon as they were housed, they knew they needed another dog. 'cause I mean, it's just kind of part of their identity. You know, you have people out there that just have grown up with animals. They always have an animal. They want to have an animal and per, and have that, that love and provide that support to something. Um, so they got a wonderful dog, um, who we've been able to meet and yeah, they're housed, they're happy. They are kind of starting fresh and, and getting their feet under them. And, um, we're able to support them with any struggles they have, not just with their needs in general or their goals, but anything related to their animal. Um, we're able to assist them to make sure that they're able to, to keep their animal in their housing, their animals healthy. Um, yeah, so her, her story is one of many that we've observed over the years. Um, that I think is a true testament to the human animal bond, but also the, the trauma that pet owners experience when they do lose their housing.

Yes. You know, it, it hit me because I have a 17 year old, right? And I put myself in her shoes. What if I had to make that decision? And I know how upset I would be, how upset my son would be if, you know, we had to, if we had to do that. And the other thing is, you know, as a mom, especially, like she had three boys, right? So as a mom of boys, you kind of wanna be strong for them. And the last thing that you wanna do is come home and cry to your kids about how hard life is. And that dog is there for that, right? That's that emotional support. She said something about like, her kids go to bed and then it's just her and the dog, and she can talk to the dog and she can cry with the dog. Yeah. And then, you know, she, she gets it from that, uh, Again, with people that are judgmental, people think, well, if you're in that situation, you shouldn't have an animal. You don't understand the importance for at-risk individuals to have that emotional support. If anything, they need those animals more than us as pets, right? Mm-hmm. Um, would you say that that's kind of like, well, I guess what is your overall take as far as animals says emotional support?

I mean, I think every animal is, is a source of emotional support. Um, I have seen, I. I've observed so many, you know, pet owner to pet or relationships over the, the last seven years, and I think what I've really noticed, what, what a huge takeaway has been is that. Like 98% of these, of these animals, um, come from amazing homes. They're super well socialized, they're super loved. The owner wants nothing but the best for them, you know, we'll, we'll do our intake with them and we'll learn about the animals' interests and their likes and their dislikes and, and maybe their allergies or, or what are their triggers are. Um, because we wanna be able to provide the best care we can for these animals while they're with us, while they're not with their owner temporarily. And we learn just how much they care for them. Um, so I mean, it's staggering to see, you know, we also ask them, you know, what does your pet mean to you? Why are you seeking our services? And I. Almost all the time. They say, well, they're my family. Like, it's almost like we're asking a stupid question like they're my family member. That's why they're important to me. Or like, that's why we're seeking services because we don't, we don't envision a world where they're not in our family. Um, we can't fathom what that would look like.

How do you obtain like the, the supplies and like the food and that kind of stuff to help these people, uh, meet the needs of the animals in their care.

We, um, we're lucky to have a partner here in Hamilton County. There's a nonprofit called United Pet Fund. They provide a lot of support to a lot of small animal rescues, animal shelters that, uh, so, so they, they're kind of like a, a food bank of sorts. They help out with supplies. We get a lot of food that way. We got a lot of cat litter. We got a lit, a lot of crates, a lot of other items like that. We rely on a lot of people just donating, um, out of the goodness of their heart that wanna support our shelter. Um, the work that we're doing, um, every now and then we have to use, you know, grant funding to get certain supplies, but, um, majority of the stuff comes from our good partners out there.

And in addition to providing with the pet food and the essentials, you also talked about providing training assistance and behavior assistance. Um, so for those, those pets that may not, may need a little bit of extra, an extra hand with knowing how to behave. So you wanna talk about that a bit?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and then that's a little bit more new territory. It's kind of been like that last frontier that we're really trying to make sure we, we cover all the bases and, and behavior. It's definitely one of them. Um, again, we haven't had too many behavior issues over the years, which is a testament to how amazing these pet owners are that we're working with. But, um, I'm lucky to have just hired a social worker who's also a dog trainer, so that covers a lot of ground as far as the, you know, the dogs that come into our program that might be a bit more reactive, being put in a cage or a kennel, um, crate, um, dogs that might not be as socialized. A lot of the behavior that we encounter definitely comes from sheltering dogs. Um, cats like to hide a lot and we just provide them their space and, and give them their space and their time to kind of transition. Um, but a big issue we're also seeing is I dogs and cats that are out in the community that belong to pet owners, that are struggling to make sure that their animal behaves, um, so that the landlord doesn't get upset so that they're, they're not, um, they're not going against what the lease requirements are to, to make sure that they have a handle on their animals, that, that their animal is a safety risk. Um, so we have started to venture into supporting the community as, you know, our animal shelters here in town also provide support like this. Um, just keeping animals in the homes that they're already there. Um, we have been working with a cool company called Good Pup. They offer virtual dog training, so we're experimenting with, um, providing some financial assistance to pet owners to make sure that they have access to virtual dog training, um, that they can work on things like, uh, like loose leash, walking and, and, um, maybe barking inside the apartment or the home. We have only started that recently. We've had some limited success, and I think it's something that we're gonna definitely put more effort to in the future.

You started, uh, offering just the service, right? to the people that were in your shelter, in your program, and then you guys have expanded. So over how long a period of time did that take to happen and what was the reason be behind the need to expand?

So, I mean, the need to expand stems from how many calls we get in a day. Um, and we're nowhere near able to compete with just how many calls we get. Um, we actually struggle with just getting back to everybody, which it, which is, it's quite, it's quite awful just how many pet owners there are that are in the midst of a crisis and they, they need assistance, you know, immediately. Um, so, you know, we started in the very beginning just offering shelter, uh, to pets for owners that were experiencing homelessness across the city. Um, in a couple years, we were able to expand to other crises, and that's because we got calls from different pet owners experiencing these different situations. Um, we, we had our expansion in 2020, so that would've been four years of operating at a smaller capacity, and that, that's when we expanded. And the real reason that we started expanding to support pet owners out in the community, so their animals not in our shelter, but they're just, you know, they might, they might live down the road. They might live 20 minutes away. Um, they might need, uh, help with supplies, food, veterinary needs. They might have veterinary needs. They might have a need for a pet, pet deposit for their, for their apartment. Um, Or behavior needs. We started working with those really slowly and gradually. Um, and that's simply because we had the supplies, we had the donations that were able to go to more than just the pets that were here. We had the time. Um, you know, we only have so much of the capacity in our shelter, but we do have the time to go out and meet a pet owner. To prevent that animal from needing to come into our building in the first place. That's kind of another way that we see it is, it's, it's prevention in a sense that we're, we're assisting the families to stay together, um, to hopefully prevent if they're at risk, especially the need for the animal to come into the building at all the need for the owner to access a homeless shelter. Um, anything we can do. Really, it boils down to anything we can do to keep the family together, um, and happy and healthy and efficient. You know, we're, we're gonna do that.

And that would include, I imagine, assisting people when they're having landlord disputes or landlord problems and that kinda stuff, right? Oh. Because I know that there are people that, that find themselves, they've had a dog, they're living in that place, and all of a sudden they tell 'em that they cannot have that dog or that breed, or they sign a lease and then when they move in, they tell 'em that they can't have a, a certain dog. So how can you guys provide assistance with that?

Yeah. And the, all those things are case by case, you know? We'll, if a pet owner calls us and, and talks about those types of issues, we'll explore it. We'll ask questions. We'll, like at the end of the day, we'll listen to them. Um, because I think just providing validation and, and listening to someone can, can do a lot, uh, for that person's kind of mentality. But, um, we also, you know, as social workers, we know about the resources in our community and we'll provide referrals when, when appropriate. So, Um, in these types of instances, we make a lot of referrals to, uh, an agency called Housing Opportunities Made Equal who they are experts in navigating landlord tenant law and knowing what rights tenants have. Um, so if there are ever disputes that are a little above our heads, um, home is super. Yeah. I mean, they are pet inclusive in that they advocate for clients all the time, and a lot of their clients have pet issues are pet owners. So we'll refer to the appropriate agency when we can. Um, we do a lot of advocacy with our landlords who aren't, uh, willing to accept pets or maybe the, the dog in question is a little bit too heavy or might look like a certain breed, and we all know that how just inefficient that. Uh, that process can be. Um, so we advocate for 'em, you know, we know the animal a lot of the times will, will fight for the owner to make sure that that animal's allowed. And that's one of the big reasons why we have funding to pay for pet deposits. 'cause paying a pet deposit can be an incentive for a landlord. But everything, every, every case is definitely case by case. And I think at the end of the day, you know, we'll listen to pet owners and their struggles. We'll advocate, advocate for them when we can, um, and then we'll refer them to the appropriate resource if we can't handle something.

We work with through our rascal unit clinics, we work with a group that does a lot with individuals experiencing financial difficulties and they do a lot of stuff with homeless individuals. And the other day they were talking to me about, they had this idea about having something like a day shelter and they're trying to explore it and I was like, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I saw that already. So, uh, do you wanna explain how your day shelter works?

The day shelter for our families. Yes. Uh, yeah, absolutely. Um, the, the model of sheltering our families is a little bit different than a typical homeless shelter. We follow a model, an interfaith model, which is why interfaith is in our title. We utilize the faith community here in greater Cincinnati, um, to host our families for us, so we don't have beds for the families in our emergency shelter at our day center. Um, we call it our day center, because the families, quite literally, they spend the day with us, uh, and they do not spend the night. They will make sure that, usually we'll bus them to a different congregation where they'll spend the night once a week. And then we rely on the volunteers at that congregation to provide dinner, to provide, um, activities for the kids to, to provide, um, all, all types of activities, um, and, and provide hospitality, quite honestly, to the families in our program. In the morning, they, they get breakfast, they get, uh, a packed lunch. They can pack their own lunch if they so choose. Um, and then they are, um, taken back to our day center. So that's the model of sheltering that we kind of prescribed to, um, and have prescribed to since, you know, the early nineties.

And then some of these individuals have their animals that are staying at your shelter, right?

Yes. Yeah. And it wasn't quite feasible for every single congregation we partner with to allow the animals to come to that building or to wherever that facility was. And that's, that was really the reason that we had kennels installed on site because they couldn't go to the churches at night. Best case scenario in a shelter setting. I mean, you want to prescribe to a cos sheltering model as much as you can. You want the animal to be with the owner because that takes less staff. It takes less volunteers if, if they don't have to provide the care for the animal. The families should be able to do that, and because of our unique circumstances, that wasn't quite possible. Families can definitely care for their animal during the day, but at night they need somewhere to be, which is where our kennels came from.

You've mentioned a few times as far as helping the, the families through transitions. So how does, how does that, process work. And then how do you make it so that the people and their animals can go through the, the transition successfully?

Yeah, and like I said earlier, working with, um, working with clients that are experiencing homelessness, we, you know, we provide case management. We ask them, I mean, the goal is obviously housing. That's the first goal. We'll also ask, you know, what other needs are, what other goals they have are, whether it be to find employment, to enroll their kid in school, to, um, to get set up with food stamps or other types of benefits that they might qualify for. Um, so our social workers work with our families on all of those things. Um, and we're lucky to employ social workers that do a really good job at that. You know, we have housing specialists to help navigate the affordable housing that is out in the community. Um, you know, being in a shelter, a lot of our families are eligible for certain types of housing programs, which only expedites the process into housing. So every single family's journey into housing looks a little bit different, but it's only really possible because of the, the social workers that are able to make that process go more seamlessly, and more efficiently, just to help search for it, to secure it to, you know, talk with the landlords and do those types of things. When it comes to the animal, our biggest approach to not just the case managers that work at Found House, but any pet owner that we're working with at any other shelter, what we're really interested in is making sure that the housing plan that that pet owner has is pet inclusive. That in that takes into consideration the entire family, which includes the pet. Um, because too often do we see, um, uh, a family whose animals in our shelter and the family the family might be at another homeless shelter in town or across the river in Northern Kentucky, and the people that are working to help this family, secure housing, forget about the pet, or they forget to mention that the pet is a part of the family, they forget to mention it to the landlord. Um, so at the end of the day, a lot of the times is, you know, they'll report, Hey, you know, we secured this apartment. Do you want to come see it? It doesn't allow pets. Those are the instances when families that do have pets have to think, you know, am I gonna say no to this apartment that I could move into, you know, by the end of the week or tomorrow even, um, and get rid of the dog. Or do I stay homeless longer? Do I stay in the shelter longer because I want to find housing with my animal? And I think for a lot of families, especially with children, that's a really hard choice that they have to make because they also need to think about their kids. Um, It's an impossible choice that someone shouldn't have to make, but people do all the time. So kind of rewinding back to what I started with is we are really interested in making sure that the whole entire family stays together. So we're not just talking with landlords, we're talking with all of the service providers that our families are engaged with, whether that's at our shelter, Found House, or any of the other types of programs in the city. Helping to, to get people, uh, to get families back on their feet.

And when you end up having to house these animals, you know, while people are, um, securing a place and that kind of stuff. On average, about how long do these animals stay with you guys?

Yeah, our average length of stay varies, but typically it's within the 90 to 120 day realm. Um, some years it's been closer to 90 some one 20. Um, I think it's directly linked. There's a direct correlation to our length of stay with the length of stay of all of the different homeless shelters in town. Um, what can bring that length of stay down is we don't have it, you know, a length of stay for pet owners that are homeless. A length of stay for pet owners that are hospitalized. It's right, right now it's all grouped together, but there definitely is, you know, the animal is here as long as it takes for the owner to get back on their feet, and sometimes that's a couple weeks, sometimes it's a couple months, sometimes it's longer, which I think just is so. Scary that someone could be experiencing homelessness for a year say, or six months or nine months, whatever it is. Um, and with that we also, there's another number that we track and that's just our return to owner rate. You know, how many animals actually get to go home? And it's about 80%, which lines up with other programs around the country that are offering a similar type of service to pet owners that are experiencing these different transitions. Um, Not every animal goes back to their owner. Um, very, very rarely do owners just not come back and we call that, you know, just being abandoned. That happens very rarely. One of the years, I think it was 2019, it happened 3% of the time. Um, out of all of the return to owners. Um, sometimes families do have those incredibly hard choices of, you know, do I get housed at this apartment this week or do I stay homeless longer? Even though this housing doesn't allow the pet, that's a reason why animals don't go back to their owners. Um, fortunately we are able to rehome that animal and find homes for those animals, um, which I think gives pet owners a lot of peace of mind. Um, but I think the fact that so many return to their owners just tells you how many animals aren't ending up at our animal shelters that would have had our program not existed.

Those are really amazing numbers. And one of the things too though, is gonna be, I'm sure that there are people that, you know, kind of get back on their feet and are doing okay for a bit and then start struggling again. So do you guys see that? And do you welcome those people back through your program?

We definitely welcome it back. Uh, we, we welcome them back to the program. Just because someone finds housing doesn't mean that all of their problems are gone. It doesn't mean that all of their struggles are gone. Usually housing is just the beginning. You know, we, we get our clients housed and then that's when they're able to, you know, start saving, start learning, budgeting, start figuring out how to navigate, you know, their new neighborhood and, and their new job, you know, whatever it is. Housing is really just the beginning. And yeah, a lot of times we do work with pet owners that, um, you know, what we call recidivism, um, pet owners that recidivate that they come back into homelessness. Um, and maybe that's because the apartment wasn't a good fit or the landlord wasn't a good fit, or you know, they had another crisis that was completely unrelated to the reason they became homeless in the, the first time. So we welcome them back and the benefit to working with them is that we already know them. We have a, a relationship with them. We have a relationship with their animal, so we're generally able to pretty efficiently work with them because we've done it before.

If there are other groups, uh, as I mentioned before, you know, like when, when something is successful, you don't wanna reinvent the wheel. Mm-hmm. So if there are other groups in other places that listen to this and wanna do something similar to your program, what can they do? What advice would you have for them?

My advice is just to, to keep in mind the goal, which is to keep families together, which is to keep animals out of animal shelters to prevent trauma. I mean, you have to think about the why that you're doing this in the first place. Um, and, you know, also to check any, you know, biases that you might have or preconceived, you know, any judgements that you might have. Any notions about pet owners that are homeless or lower income. You know, check those at the door. 'cause, you know, they don't, um, they don't hold weight really. How, how a program or how someone could start to do this work is, is gonna look really different. Um, yeah, I'm definitely not a fan of reinventing the wheel, but I also think that someone needs to utilize the resources that exist in their community to begin with. So if that means, you know, if you're a social worker, you definitely wanna make sure that you have some animal welfare professionals on board because you don't wanna, you know, have to learn something that someone could share with you. Um, and then vice versa, if you're in animal welfare, if you're at a shelter, You know, hire a social worker that can help you design a program that isn't just animal centered, but people centered. You know, you wanna make sure that you are equally working with the animal, um, but also working with the person and their struggles and their goals because, um, you know, that relationship is the most important part. So you can't. Work with the animal, forget about the owner, or vice versa. Uh, you really have to consider the entire family in order to do this work. Um, yeah, there are so many different ways that people can do this work. I, I, hear about programs across the country all the time. You know, whether they're social workers or a social services agency, or an animal welfare agency, an animal shelter, all of them do it a little bit differently. But I think, um, there's so much overlap. So, I certainly welcome phone calls if people are curious about how to get this set up, um, and just explore what their options are.

And I think another part would be potentially kind of like starting with one part of the process and then growing, right? Like you had said that you are continuously expanding and, and growing, not trying to do everything all at once. Yep. Because I mean that, that gets you nowhere. So with as much as you have grown, what's next

So, I mean, we're still in the process of maximizing the space that we have. We still have to grow in our kennel sizes. Um, so that's just a matter of funding. When the funding's there, we'll be able to install more dog kennels, more cat kennels. We're in the process right now of adding an additional, um, space outside for our dogs where volunteers take them out. They can use the bathroom, they can provide enrichment. Um, historically we've just had one yard. Um, having two will improve just the efficiency of caring for all of our animals. We'd love to, uh, grow our foster program. We'd love to grow just our hold in the community, making sure that more agencies know about the work that we're doing. Um, more agencies are following a kind of a more pet inclusive approach. We wanna make sure that we're out there, that we're training social workers, we're training animal welfare professionals on how best to do this type of work, um, locally because that, at the end of the day, makes our program more successful, um, and prevents animals from entering our program. Um, we wanna keep strengthening all of the different resources that we're offering. Um, I don't, can't remember if I mentioned adding staff. Um, Adding interns, adding volunteers, um, just doing more and doing it better. We've, we're definitely a program with a lot of, um, you know, learning from our past mistakes, our past successes, um, always constantly striving to just improve what we're doing.

You just mentioned about fosters, and I think that that's something that people don't, don't think about. 'cause when we think about fosters for, for animals, we think about shelters having a foster until that animal gets adopted, not a foster to give an animal back. Mm-hmm. So that is actually a really interesting concept. So how does that work and do you ever have a, an issue where somebody, uh, how you say you have to work with the fosters to make them understand that they do have to give the animals back to where they came from?

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, working with fosters in our program is, is very similar to working with fosters at an animal shelter with some key differences. Um, you know, the similarities are, you know, we're providing supplies, we're providing the, the, the support that the foster needs to provide the best care for the animal possible. I think one of the big pros of fostering for our program is that you can't be a foster fail. Um, that at least not in the beginning. Of course, it happens if it's an animal that can't return home, but I think that that could be a big draw to fosters that want to provide support to animals or people out there that have animals, um, but can't permanently take in animals. You know, they want it to just be temporary. Um, we do have to work with fosters a lot that might not underst understand where the animal's coming from, you know, based on their judgments or their biases. So, We do communicate with fosters a lot. And to their credit, there are a lot of fosters that really believe in the mission of what we're doing. And they have their own boundaries and, and they keep everything really in check. And then as soon as the animal gets to go home, of course it's sad, uh, for them because they have a relationship with this animal, but they also know that the animal is gonna be, be okay 'cause it's, it gets to go back home. Um, but yeah, you have to work with the foster, uh, just like you have to work with the volunteer, just like you work with the pet owner. Doing this type of work is not for people that just like animals. You have to, you have to love people as much as you love animals to to do it right.

I love that you say that because too many people get into animal business, right? Because they don't like people, and then there are people that don't care about animals. You watch percent say that, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I, I do have a, a, a shirt that says veterinary medicine because people are gross, right? Sure, sure, sure, sure. But, but the reality of it is that they are, like Dr. Kennedy said the other day, uh, they are a unit. You have to see them as a family unit, and you cannot treat the people without their animals, and you cannot treat the animals without their people. And even if you are not an animal lover, you have to understand the importance of that relationship. So if you care about the person, you have to care about the animal. And people that don't like animals still don't necessarily wanna see them hurt. So just because somebody's not an animal lover doesn't mean that they, they want something, you know, not okay to happen to them. Um, so I know that you offer help and support and resources for people with like spay and neuter and that kind of stuff. So how do you work with individuals for those kind of resources?

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I'll, I'll give a huge, um, shout out to UCAN, um, the United Coalition for Animals here in Cincinnati, they do amazing work operating a spay, neuter and vaccine clinic too. Um, that's affordable. Um, they have a huge need, so it can be hard to just as a lay person, just schedule an appointment. They're booked out quite far. Which I think just shows how big of a need for spay neuter and there still is, but, um, we have a relationship with them. We've worked with them for years. We're able to, um, ensure that if we have a pet owner that's wanting their animal fixed, um, and then on top of that, they're lower income, they're, they're working with all of these different struggles, um, we work with UCAN to, to get them into their, uh, their clinic and make sure that that animal is fixed. A lot of the times we'll offer transportation ourselves. Um, so. We need, we need, uh, that's kind of an example of something we wanna do better, is we wanna have more transportation opportunities, um, and resources. Because a lot of the pet owners we work with don't have access to transportation. They can't bring their animal on the bus. A lot of Ubers and Lyfts and, you know, ride shares don't allow animals or it's a little bit harder to access. So just getting to the clinic can be a really big difficulty. So that's kind of one of the big struggles we have to overcome working with pet owners out in the community. Um, but we do offer a lot of transportation. Um, we work with the spay neuter clinics, um, to make sure that, you know, everything is done. Uh, that yeah, we communicate properly. So it's really that simple.

Throughout the years that you have worked there, do you have a success story that has meant a lot to you that you would wanna share with us?

Oh boy. Um, I know I have a lot because at the end of the day, It's hard work and you know, it can be really stressful, but seeing an animal reunite with their owner can, I mean, makes it all worth it. It's why we do this job. I've had one owner that I've worked with since I started that I still communicate with this to, with, to this day, um, who has experienced homelessness in her lifetime, 5, 6, 7 times. Um, and that's just because of how many barriers she's had, the lack of support that she has from family or from friends. Um, there are a lot of reasons that attribute to that. But she has a cat and now today she has two, and I've worked with her a couple of times through her experience with homelessness. We've sheltered the cat a couple different times. Um, and I can say pretty confidently that she is housed right now and she's providing care for her animals. She is figuring out all of the different things that she needs to get done to just be, you know, uh, a contributing member of society. And she's doing it really well. She's had a lot of obstacles that she's had to overcome. I visit her, uh, sometimes it's, you know, every couple weeks if she has a higher need. Sometimes it's every couple months, sometimes I don't, I, I don't talk to her for a while, but, um, the, the love that she has for her animals and the animal's love for her is, it constantly amazes me. Um, and just how hard she works, um, in the, in the hand that she's been dealt. Um, it's, it's amazing. So I, I feel very grateful to be working with her still to this day and just check in on her from time to time. Um, and I have so many other pet owners that I've worked with that, there's so much overlap with that story. Um, so many amazing pet owners out there, so many amazing reunifications where dogs just go absolutely ballistic when they see their owner. And it's like, you almost know that. You almost think that they know they're going home, um, that they, that they're going back to, to, to being a family unit again. Um, seeing that impact. Really on a weekly basis, we're seeing animals go home to their owners just because of, you know, how often we bring in animals, how often they leave. Um, it fuels us. It keeps us going 'cause we get to see how important it's.

it's such a great feeling. My, myself and my staff, we're always really tired at the end of our days, but we feel emotionally like. Super high, right? 'cause we're helping people, we're helping animals. So I imagine that it's very similar for you and it's, it just, I mean, you can't beat that. You, it's, it becomes not a job, right? It's like

Absolutely. Right.

If somebody is interested in doing this and would like guidance is that something that you can provide? And if so, how can people get ahold of you for that?

Yeah, we, we love to set up like Zoom calls or, or even just communicate via email or on the phone. Just kind of that initial, you know, what, what, what do you wanna do? What is your, what is your agency doing? What does your community look like? Um, how can we best support you? We will definitely spend an hour to do that. Um, and then anything more intensive, you know, is case by case. But, um, emailing me is the best way to do that. Um, my email address is g Parsons, p a r s o n s, at found house.org. That's f o u n D as in dog, h o u s e.org. Uh, send me an email, let me know, uh, you know, what you wanna do and how we might be able to support you.

Thank you so much for sharing all this information and thank you so much for everything that you're doing for the community. Uh, in closing, is there anything that you wanna leave our listeners with?

Yeah, I think that, you know, while programs like this are popping up all over the place and they're still seen as so unique, I mean, they're also no-brainers. You know, we want to keep families together. We don't want people to have to surrender animals. We don't want animals to have to enter animal shelters 'cause we know how, how many animals, how, how overwhelmed animal shelters are right now in this day and age. Um, this is a no-brainer. Um, and it can be hard to navigate, but I think once you have the the right mission and the right goals, it can be pretty clear cut. Um, so yeah, at the end of the day, just keeping the family together is how we're gonna really have a huge impact, I think, in animal welfare and human welfare.

And if anybody listening to us is in need of your services, what is gonna be the best way for them to find other resources?

If they have access to email, they can send me an email, um, or they can, uh, call us at our agency line. (513) 471-1100. My, uh, my phone is extension one two five.

Well, thank you so very much again for everything that you're doing. For everybody that's out there, there are resources to help you if you're experiencing any problems. If you're a victim of domestic violence, there are groups like this and other people that can help you, so you don't have to stay in situations that you're at risk, that you are unsafe. Uh, you can find safety for yourself and for your animals. So, um, thank you for everybody that's listening and thank you for everybody that cares so much about the animals. And thank you for taking the time and for listening and for sharing.

Thanks so much for having me.