ASPCA Commends Los Angeles City Council for Passing Motion to Create More Pet-Friendly Housing

LOS ANGELES– The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) commends the Los Angeles City Council for approving an ordinance that requires all city-financed housing to allow residents to have pets. Sponsored by Councilmember Paul Koretz, this ordinance will ensure pets and families can stay together as well as reduce shelter intake rates by removing housing barriers for low-income and homeless pet owners. A similar motion was unanimously approved by the L.A. City Council last year.

“A lack of access to pet-friendly housing can require pet owners to grapple with an impossible decision: either give up their pet or keep a roof over their heads,” said Susan Riggs, senior director of state legislation for the ASPCA, Western region. “While this painful choice can be difficult to imagine, it is often a grim reality for those with few housing options or special housing needs. We are grateful to Councilmember Koretz for moving this ordinance forward to open up more pet-friendly housing options in the city and providing much needed relief to lower-income pet owners.”

"This ordinance has been a long time coming because it does not make sense to penalize homeless and low-income renters and their animals when we're talking about publicly-financed housing,” said Councilmember Paul Koretz. “We're supposed to be removing barriers to finding homes, not erecting them. I thank the ASPCA for being an effective and crucial force behind the scenes in getting this done at long last."

A national study conducted by the ASPCA revealed that those who rent are more likely to need to rehome their pets for housing issues than for any other reason. Between 2011 and 2015, 23 percent of all dog surrenders and 19 percent of all cat surrenders in Los Angeles were due to a lack of pet-friendly housing options. This adds up to nearly 30,000 dogs and cats being surrendered to shelters each year for housing issues in Los Angeles alone.

The ASPCA operates a fully-subsidized spay/neuter clinic in South Los Angeles, along with two mobile clinics that provide no-cost spay/neuter and basic veterinary care services in Los Angeles. In addition to the South Los Angeles clinic in the City, the ASPCA is stationed at two of the County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control’s Animal Care Centers with the goal to increase accessibility of resources to pet-owning families, and as a result, improve the welfare of L.A.’s animals and help keep pets and people together.

For more information about the ASPCA or to join the ASPCA Advocacy Brigade, please visit www.aspca.org.