What’s happening with a local animal shelter during the pandemic

ENGLEWOOD, Fla. — COVID-19 has had unprecedented consequences for animal shelters like The Suncoast Humane Society.

Although adoption rates have skyrocketed in many shelters, they worry that pet owners who return to work or school will be left with no time to care for their animals. Nonprofit organizations have also understandably suffered from the pandemic-fueled economic crisis.

Florida’s stay-at-home order in 2020 dealt the Englewood shelter a mighty blow. After initially closing, they have reopened on an appointment-only basis.

Lena Hart, Director of Communications and Events, has been navigating uncharted operational territory. COVID-19 has impacted their marketing tactics, community engagement, and events.

“When COVID hit and all our animals were in foster, we still had to promote them and still have to find them forever families and homes, but we had to rely on content from the fosters and everybody that would be involved with the animals,” Hart said. “We also couldn’t just meet up with people because that was very much against the rules.”

Hart is slowly trying to reintroduce events, and they plan to start hosting again in the summer.

She also shared the fears of many other shelters that the economic crisis would create an overwhelming wave of intakes. Plenty of shelters have experienced this, she said, and the Suncoast Humane Society is determined to find foster homes for as many animals as possible.

“There’s thousands and millions of people who are willing and able to foster, and we just have to find ways to get the animals matched up and to get them out of here,” Hart said.

Fatime Duka, Associate Director of Innovative Programs, said it was very odd returning to an empty shelter.

“Of course we had to maintain the foster homes throughout,” Duka said. “It was as quiet as can be, you could hear a pin drop.”

She was also concerned that people would abandon their animals on the grounds while there was no one there to care for them.

“When our doors are closed, sometimes people think there’s no other options and there’s no other way,” Duka said.

She also feels that the public may not be aware of what’s going on in animal shelters during the pandemic.

“People don’t realize how much we are doing and we’re trying to market that in different ways and get the word out there,” Duka said.

Emily Lane, Director of Development, is responsible for securing the shelter’s funds. When the shelter and their thrift shop closed, everything changed.

“We get a lot of money from a thrift shop we run. It’s almost half of the money that we use to care for the pets,” she said. “We had to find homes for a couple hundred pets in about two weeks.”

Lane also said she’s been a little out of her comfort zone when it comes to working with donors.

“I’ve done some Zooms, I’ve done a lot of phone calls. But it’s weird when you’re sitting there with masks on and not touching one another and it’s just a different dynamic,” she said. “And I’m a hugger!”

But there’s another problem – the usual donors are contributing elsewhere.

“A lot of foundations switched over to doing almost exclusively COVID relief,” she said. “That, fortunately, is changing, but foundation giving this year is going to be down.”

Like many other shelters, the Suncoast Humane Society has experienced staff shortages.

“People are sitting at home a lot and they get to thinking about their lives and they make changes,” Lane said.

But luckily, the pandemic has had some positive outcomes for the Suncoast Humane Society.

Lane said the shelter’s donors have done everything they can to help.

“We came out to them and said, ‘We need your help,’ not just with getting these animals fostered out, but also how are we going to pay staff, how are we going to buy the things that we need, pay the electric on the building? Even if no one’s working there, all of that had to be covered,” she explained. “We had a $300,000 challenge and we exceeded it; and not only that, but they have continued to be generous.”

She has even connected with some new donors.

“We got new donations from people that were thinking, as they sat at home with nothing to do, about what they could do for their community. And thank God people love their animals and their pets, and they wanted to help the ones that don’t have homes,” Lane said.

She said that, in some respects, their community engagement has actually expanded. They’ve given out pet supplies like food and litter, offered select free or low-cost pet surgeries, and held food banks for people in need.

“They can come here and if they’re in dire straits, we’ll take care of the problem for them, but we also can refer them if it’s something we can’t do,” Lane said.

Hart agreed that there have been some unexpected benefits, especially within their foster program.

“We went from having up to 10 fosters on deck to over 200,” Hart said. “People are stepping up to the plate and saying, ‘I’m willing to commit to do this, this, and this to do more for the animals’.”

From the Facebook groups for their fosters and volunteers, Hart knows many of the animals are having a great time with their temporary caretakers. She’s optimistic about the future.

“The most unique thing is that we’ve been able to transform as far as who we are as an organization through such a hard time; it was like we grew from this terrible experience,” Hart said.

Duka is also amazed by their progress.

“I think we’ve come off even stronger now than before,” Duka said. “It’s been a journey but we’ve all been able to successfully keep everything under control and get the animals into homes.”

Because appointments are required to meet the animals, they are isolated from their overwhelming environment, and the shelter has had more success with prospective adopters.

“We don’t have the foot traffic going through our kennels or cattery anymore,” Duka said. “We’re noticing the stress levels go down for the animals.”

Lane emphasized the importance of contributing to charities facing emergency circumstances.

“People need to always remember during any kind of financial crisis that if they have extra money in their pockets, find a place where they can make an important impact in their community to help others,” Lane said.