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The Calgary Humane Society is hoping to curb pet surrenders by promoting pet-friendly housing.
Through a partnership with the City of Calgary, the charity is launching a campaign to address the lack of pet-inclusive housing.
The Calgary Humane Society says it gets over 500 animals abandoned or surrendered to it annually due to housing insecurity.
The city estimates that 53 per cent of Calgarians own a pet, but less than 10 per cent of low-cost rentals allow pets, according to data the Humane Society compiled from recent rental listings.
“Every single day, we see families coming in making that impossible choice,” said Carrie Fritz, the charity’s executive director. “They are choosing between a place to live or keeping their companion animal.”
“The problem is real, and it’s something that we thought we could do better on,” Fritz said. “And that’s what this initiative is all about.”
The Calgary Humane Society pictured in a file photo. The charity says 2,475 animals were adopted from its shelter last year. (Jo Horwood/CBC)
The new initiative aims to start conversations between landlords and tenants, providing landlords with confidence to rent to families with pets and even explore becoming pet-friendly.
It also gives tenants resources to increase transparency and accountability, which aim to help build landlord confidence.
“We do offer behavior consultation,” Fritz said. “If there is barking or excessive noises, we can offer some advice [and help them] find insurance policy options for them if they do rent to animal owning families.”
WATCH | Rising cost of living forcing some owners to surrender their pets, humane societies say:
Rising cost of living forcing some owners to surrender their pets, humane societies say
Some animal shelters and humane societies are seeing an uptick in people surrendering their pets due to rising costs. Sally Johnston, the Calgary Humane Society’s community services director, explains.
City of Calgary chief housing officer Reid Hendry says the move to increase availability of pet-friendy housing aligns with an increase in Calgary’s rental supply.
“We’re here to increase supply, choice, and affordability, and what we’re focused on today is that choice,” he said.
Hendry said the City of Calgary will be incorporating community guidelines into its granting programs to incentivize pet-friendly policies in bylaws for those applying for grants.
“We’re very hopeful and optimistic that through a campaign like this, through collaboration like this, we will see landlords become educated, we will see tenants become educated, and we will see more Calgarians successfully housed with themselves and their pets for the long term,” he said.
Bad experiences
According to the Humane Society campaign, more than half of renters with pets have reported been denied housing because of their animals.
Property manager Andrew Fulcher says the vast majority of condos his company is in charge of don’t allow pets.
“We manage about 95 different rental properties for various different owners,” he said.
“Of those 95 properties, I can probably say that three of them would accept a pet and the rest of them wouldn’t.”
Fulcher said that’s a major factor behind turning away many renters, including people he called “responsible pet owners.”
“I think some landlords have had some very bad experiences in the past with people with pets, and have cost them a lot of money to clean up after pets, have destroyed properties, and so they are just, you know, basically pet shy,” he said.
Fulcher, a pet owner himself, supports the Calgary campaign for more pet-friendly housing.
“I think it’s a nice idea, and what we need is a lot more education around this issue for landlords,” he said.
But Fulcher says many landlords might not be as open-minded when it comes to making their properties pet-inclusive.
“It only takes one landlord to have had a horrendous experience with a cat or a dog that’s kind of destroyed part of their property, and then they’re kind of very negative and sour on the whole idea of pets,” he said.
More information on the campaign and available resources, including landlord and tenant toolkits, are available on the Calgary Humane Society website.