My Dog is My Home: Emerging Practices in Co-Sheltering

This presentation was recorded at the 2021 My Dog is My Home C0-Sheltering Conference.                                             
Co-Sheltering Findings from the Field
This session will highlight findings from an exploratory study, made possible by a grant from Maddie’s Fund, that assessed animal-friendly homeless shelters’ current approaches to co-sheltering, documenting challenges, key issues, and lessons learned. Using a comparative case study approach, the study included individual interviews with staff and focus groups with clients with and without animals at four homeless shelters in the U.S. and Canada. We will discuss how findings can inform development of animal-friendly policies and practices in homeless shelters.

Animal Care Guidelines for Emergency Co-Sheltering
The Animal Care Guidelines for Emergency Co-Sheltering is a set of evidence-based recommendations and resources to support the care of animals within emergency shelters. In this presentation, I will share some of the information and resources in this first version of the document, but also seek feedback from the audience on how to make this resource more applicable and user-friendly for shelter workers.

Welcoming Animals into Interim Housing for Healing and Hope
Interim housing settings are spaces where rubber hits the road (or maybe we should say, paws hit the pavement!) both in terms of healing from the trauma of homelessness and building trust and hope for the future. For those with beloved accompanying animals, the acknowledgement and support of that primary relationship and the approaches taken to welcome and care for those beloved is both a mirror of our own humanity and a key for healing and hope. From providing basic space and support to offering training in a variety of areas, PATH takes a "whatever it takes" approach as we walk alongside our guests (including all from the animal kingdom) and help them make it home.

Presenter(s): Lisa Lunghofer, Executive Director of Making Good Work, Dr. Michelle Lem, Founder and Director of Community Veterinary Outreach, Steve Fiechter, Senior Director of Metro LA Programs at PATH LA

keywords: My Dog is My Home conference, animal well-being, unhoused people with pets, human animal bond, keeping pets and people together, helping pets and their caregivers, emotional support animal; best practice; emerging practice; policy; standard operating procedure; homeless shelter; homelessness