Animal shelters in St. Louis are in crisis. Here’s how to help

By Emily Woodbury

Published October 5, 2023 at 5:47 PM CDT

CARE STL volunteers provide training and enrichment for a shelter dog named Chex Mix. — CARE STL volunteers provide training and enrichment for a dog named Chex Mix. Many animal shelters are operating over capacity right now. They're seeking volunteers to walk dogs, spend time with cats and help with laundry to alleviate the burden on staff members.

In her 15 years in animal rescue, Weng Horak has never seen the level of crowding that shelters are now facing.

“It's really tough,” said Horak, the founder and CEO of the Center for Animal Rescue and Enrichment of St. Louis. “Our staff are so burned out. We have a lot of volunteers who are also burned out. They see, every day, three [to] four trucks lined up to drop off animals in our shelter.”

Weng Horak, left; Alisha Vianello, right — Weng Horak, left, is founder and CEO of the Center for Animal Rescue and Enrichment of St. Louis. Alisha Vianello, right, is executive director of Gateway Pet Guardians.

Horak’s shelter is set up to handle about 80 animals. Currently, it houses 222.

“A lot of them are in offices,” she said. “There's about 60 to 70 in pop-up crates, and these animals are staying [in the crate] for at least 23 hours.”

Animal rescue professionals like Horak are raising the alarm. Demand for their services has reached an unprecedented level of crisis. In addition to shelters being crowded, the number of stray dogs and cats on the streets continues to grow.

Alisha Vianello, executive director of Gateway Pet Guardians in East St. Louis, said lack of affordable, pet-friendly housing and an increase in evictions have forced more families to surrender their pets to shelters. The crunch has led to lengthy owner surrender waitlists.

“If you go to a shelter and say, ‘I need to surrender my pet,’ they might say, ‘Well, there's a three- to six-month waitlist.’ But you're getting evicted tomorrow, so you have to come up with a plan. People get desperate,” she said. “Even though it's sad when we see a dog or cat dropped off at our front door, tied up or in a cage, we know that [the owner] trusted us to take care of it. We just wish we could talk to them and figure out if there are resources we could have given you to keep your pet.”

Both Gateway Pet Guardians and CARE STL offer food pantries and pet supplies to those who are struggling to make ends meet.

“If we intake a pet, we're going to have to pay for all of that anyway,” Vianello said. “So why not keep them with their owner? That keeps a shelter space free, and it keeps them with the person who loves them.”

Vianello raised several solutions to help avoid overcrowding. She wants to see more people stepping up to foster pets, more shelter volunteers and more donations. She also suggested that other community organizations, such as those that serve people without housing, allow pets at their facilities.

Gino McCoy, right, begins to cry as he says goodbye to his dogs and is comforted by Drew Falvey on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, outside City Hall in Downtown St. Louis. McCoy had been informed that he and his wife would be unable to bring all of their three dogs to the housing being offered to him, and that at least two would need to be kept by volunteers for the time being. — Gino McCoy, right, begins to cry as he says goodbye to his dogs and is comforted by Drew Falvey on Tuesday outside City Hall in downtown St. Louis. McCoy had been informed that he and his wife would be unable to bring all of their three dogs to the housing being offered to him, and that at least two would need to be kept by volunteers for the time being.

“Pets are part of the family,” Vianello said. “So when we look at people experiencing trauma or going through things, there needs to be solutions so that they can keep their pets.”

To learn more about what animal shelters are going through, and what you can do to help, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcast, or by clicking the play button below.

Housing instability has led to an overcrowding crisis at St. Louis animal shelters

Related Events
What: CARE STL’s Fee-Waived Adoption Event
When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday
Where: Center for Animal Rescue and Enrichment (2801 Clark Ave., St. Louis, MO 63103)

What: Walk-In Adoption Event To Help “Empty The Shelters”
When: 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Oct. 10, 11, 12, and 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 12
Where: Gateway Pet Guardians’ Pet Resource Center (725 N. 15th St., East St. Louis, IL 62205)

“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Ulaa Kuziez is our production intern. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.