{"id":332389,"date":"2026-07-07T22:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332389\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T22:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:20:22","slug":"st-pete-animal-shelter-seeks-help-from-the-community-after-third-veto-of-2m-expansion-funds-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332389\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete animal shelter seeks help from the community after third veto of $2M expansion funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

A St. Pete animal shelter<\/a> is asking for help after state funding for its expansion project was vetoed for a third consecutive year. It’s forced the no-kill shelter to put their plans on hold.<\/p>\n

Friends of Strays is looking at alternative options to come up with two million dollars after Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed their plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we adopted just over two thousand animals. So with the Milky Bone doghouse, we’re hoping to bring that number up to about 2500,\u201d Dara Worthington with Friends of Strays said.<\/p>\n

The shelter said owner surrenders have consistently increased over the past decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the State of Florida, we’re seeing an increase in owner surrenders and we’re also seeing an increase in the fact that these animals that are coming have not had any medical care for quite a while,\u201d Worthington said.<\/p>\n

It’s work, they said, needs a lot more space. Its current facilities mainly house cats; the organization said it’s time to create more space for dogs as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t have space to humanely house larger dogs. At this point, we have two large kennels that we can house larger dogs in. So, mostly we’re only able to take moms and babies, liters of puppies and smaller dogs,\u201d Worthington said.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit has asked the state for two million dollars to turn this building into a space with 18 dog rooms. It’s been vetoed three times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set a target to be under current year’s budget, so we had to get to that level. Some of the things were plausible, but you have to make decisions,\u201d Governor DeSantis said.<\/p>\n

Representative Linda Chaney sent a statement saying: \u201cI asked for these funds to give a voice to strays that need our help, and because when animals are safe our communities are safer. Friends of Strays does a great job and I will ask for funds again next year to support their good work. For now, I ask the community to please spay and neuter your pets to reduce the stray population.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s so many larger dogs out there that need help that if we had this building up and running, we would be able to do so much more in our state,\u201d Worthington said.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to learn more about the shelter’s expansion project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A St. Pete animal shelter is asking for help after state funding for its expansion project was vetoed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4271,137117,137118,137116,412,202,204,203,199,201,200,12020,137119],"class_list":["post-332389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-animal-shelter","tag-dara-worthington","tag-expansion-project","tag-friends-of-strays","tag-ron-desantis","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-state-funding","tag-worthington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}