Though there was great fanfare at its introduction in 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's audacious plan to cut homelessness by two thirds within five years and end chronic homelessness in the long term has been something of a failure. This past year saw the highest level of homelessness since the city began recording such numbers in its history.
In its 2010 State of the Homeless report, the Coalition for the Homeless described "a record breaking 39,000 homeless New Yorkers sleeping in municipal shelters each night ... This year, city also saw over 10,000 homeless families in shelters each night for the first time ever."
Despite the swelling ranks, the city's Department of Homeless Services is slated for substantial funding and service reductions in the FY11 budget. The administration and homeless advocates, though, differ sharply on just how severe the cuts are and what effect they will have on services.
In recent testimony before the City Council, new homeless services commissioner Seth Diamond said the agency's "budget reduction target is $24.5 million" and in part to meet this target, homeless services proposes to "reduce headcount by 57 through attrition."
Commissioner Diamond told Gotham Gazette he believes that, the department, by working in conjunction with the Human Resources Administration, should have "sufficient resources to provide to their clients. There will be no impact on services."
The Coalition for the Homeless, one of the administration's staunchest critics on homelessness, sees the situation very differently.
"The proposed cutbacks are the most severe in New York since modern homelessness began, and would lead to further increases in New York City’s homeless population," the group says on its website.
As specified in the Office of Management and Budget's Executive Budget Agency Gap Closing Programs (PEG) report issued earlier this month, the department plans to:
--Eliminate 40 Safe Haven and 50 "stabilization" beds for chronically homeless single adults, saving $970,000;
--Close Open Door, a 24-hour street drop-in center based in Manhattan, saving almost $2.5 million;
--Reduce medical services at 12 shelters saving more than $1.7 million;
--Cut a relocation and assistance contract helping 1,000 families transition to permanent housing to save more than $1 million.
The department had been looking to charge fees to working families staying in shelters, an issue arising from a never-enforced state law and a policy with which the city flirted last year. But during his council testimony, the commissioner reported negotiations with the state offered the city some flexibility so that now working families will be required to deposit money into a savings account.
The reductions also come after the New York City Housing Authority canceled thousands of Section 8 federal housing vouchers for low-income families, making it even harder for people to find permanent homes.
Dramatic changes to the city's HomeBase also are in the works. This would shift the emphasis away from prevention and anti-eviction services for all families at risk of becoming homeless toward case management and re-housing services for homeless families who live in hotels.
Perhaps the most controversial of all the cuts from homeless services is the proposed elimination of employment specialists at 13 facilities serving 2,404 families. This would save $372,000.
The cornerstone of the Bloomberg administration's fight against homelessness has been some form of work program, though the configurations have changed over time. Currently, it is reflected in the updated Work Advantage, which provides rental assistance for up to two years -- but only if at least one family member is working before they receive the subsidy.
Diamond is no stranger to this approach. He was a deputy commissioner at the city's Human Resources Administration and is an advocate of welfare reform -- and work requirements -- on which he worked during the Giuliani administration. Patrick Markee, senior analyst at the Coalition for the Homeless, described Diamond as one of the architects of the city's "work-as-the-answer-to-poverty" philosophy that was so dominant during the Giuliani years and was later adopted by Bloomberg administrations.
"Firing more employment specialists when you claim the centerpiece of your new policies will be placing more people in employment makes as little sense as a community about to host the Winter Olympics dismantling all its ice making and snow making machines," said NYC Coalition Against Hunger executive director Joel Berg in an email.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who chaired the City Council's Committee on General Welfare before moving on to this current post, agreed in an email. "Cutting crucial services for homeless New Yorkers just when our city faces record unemployment will cost taxpayers more money in the long term, and runs contrary to the new 'back to work' theme regularly emphasized by Commissioner Diamond," he said.
The proposed reductions aren't necessarily what they appear to be, according to a spokesperson for homeless services. In an email, she said the shelter-based employment program is not being cut. "We are restoring it with stimulus funding," she wrote. "Furthermore, we work closely with our sister agency HRA to provide many employment training and job placement options for those in shelter. Employment will remain a priority at DHS both in shelter, and as clients leave shelter to return to the community through our new Advantage program."
Independent Budget Office budget and policy analyst Kerry Spitzer said shifting money does not always result in service cuts. In this instance, she said, some cuts will be offset by the use of different funding, including money from other city agencies. "We don't know exactly how it will play out but it will interesting to see," Spitzer said. For example, the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program is slated for more than $ 1 million in cuts in the mayor's executive budget but in the end will be covered by federal stimulus money.
But Markee cautioned, "It's not a one-to-one ratio, city to stimulus money" and the change ultimately will result in a net loss.
The reduction in employment counseling comes amid debate about whether Work Advantage has been successful--even before the cuts.
On its blog, the coalition states that based on the city's own research, the average participant in Work Advantage "earns $9 an hour and works 32 hours an week. That translates to monthly pre-tax income of around $1,150, or an annual pre-tax income of around $15,000." The quandary for homeless families is underscored, they write, because these families are regularly housed in apartments that cost about $1,100 per month leaving just a few dollars for all other expenses. Despite this, the blog continues, "DHS cuts off rental assistance even if the family does not have the income to afford their apartment."
Markee testified in April before the council's General Welfare Committee that "more than 7,000 families are at risk of returning to shelter" this year.
Diamond defended his agency, reporting, "less than 5 percent [of Work Advantage families] returned ... meaning a 95 percent success rate. If they come back we'll work with them to try and get them out quickly. It doesn't mean the program is a failure."
There's some support for the coalition's concern. A fall 2009 analysis issued by the Institute for Children and Poverty concluded, "Those who will find success are the minority of homeless families who are most able to help themselves; however, the majority of younger, less skilled, and more burdened families will not. The prospects for these families remain bleak, and the city’s Work Advantage Program provides little hope of relief. It appears that these families are in need of education and employment skills prior to any rental subsidies."
As to the other cuts, Commissioner Diamond said that in the last fiscal year the city has added money resulting in a net gain of 136 Safe Haven and stabilization beds available to the single adult population at city or faith-based shelters and drop-in centers. This comes despite the elimination of 40 and 50 listed in the budget.
Spitzer also said the damage could be far worse. "The overall gap in DHS' budget doesn't come near to the amount proposed to be slashed by state aid," she said. (The state has not yet passed its budget so these numbers remain hypothetical.) The amount of city tax levies going to these programs is $412 million for the coming fiscal year, Spitzer said, down from the level of last year but up substantially when compared to what was in the plan in January.
Technically, Markee said, that's accurate. A 1979 state Supreme Court ruling established the the legal right to shelter and mandates the city to fund homeless entitlement programs -- since homelessness increased, so did the correlating spending. "It's the discretionary funding that will see the biggest hits, like the drop-in center, and medical and employment services," he said.
Rather than cut programs, Markee wants the administration to step up its efforts, particularly in helping people afford places to live. For him, the very basis of its homeless philosophy is all wrong. "Jobs are not the only answer to homelessness. ... It's also rental assistance. ... Rents are out of reach ...even doubling the minimum wage."
Earlier this year, Bloomberg introduced a revision to his New Housing Marketplace Plan, which in 2003 targeted the creation or maintenance of 165,000 affordable housing units by 2014. The updated version places greater emphasis on "strengthening neighborhoods, expanding the supply of affordable and sustainable housing, and stabilizing families by keeping them in their homes." But in any version, Markee said, the city has still "lost more affordable housing than it created."
There's also been a significant lag in the creation of supportive housing units, a fact reinforced by the Independent Budget Office, which found "about 1,200 units less than expected after four years had been created." Supportive units are traditionally used to permanently house people with HIV/AIDS, mental health or addiction issues while providing them with social services.
"The city is overwhelmed with new homeless families," Markee said. "There is rising need and fewer resources that are already overwhelmed in other agencies."
Public Advocate de Blasio wrote, "Our city faces a record number of New Yorkers living on the streets and in shelter; eliminating vital support services will only make it more difficult for them to get back on their feet and out of the cycle of poverty.”
Jillian Jonas is a freelance journalist focusing on local and national politics, government and public policy. She is a former national political analyst for U.P.I.
At the Ravenswood public housesin Astoria, a cat munches on dry food underneath a sign reading "Please Refrain From Feeding The Cats." Plates of dry food and empty cat-food cans dot the projects. Cats squeeze in and out of VCR-sized rectangular slots in the bases of the buildings to enter crawl spaces. Residents complain about the mess left by people feeding the cats, about the smell of the male cats' spraying, and infestations of ticks and fleas. But most tenants say they do not want the cats harmed.
"I don’t want to see any cats killed," said Carol Wilkins, a resident for over 50 years and president of the Ravenswood Resident Association. "Housing is not in the job of killing cats."
"If they euthanize the cats, will they euthanize the rats?" said Gregg Berry, 41, a lifelong resident who claims he hardly ever sees a rat at Ravenswood and gives the cats credit for that.
A coalition of animal welfare organizations has offered to take care of the problem. Through a process known as trap-neuter-return, or TNR, they propose to trap, spay and neuter the cats, vaccinate them for rabies and treat them for fleas -- at no cost to New York City Housing Authority, which runs Ravenswood. Kittens and people-friendly adult cats would be removed for adoption. But the unadoptable, feral cats, after being sterilized and vaccinated, would be brought back to live outdoors at Ravenswood. And this is where residents and animal groups say that the housing authority has repeatedly balked. They don't want cats brought back.
"Unfortunately NYCHA does not want the cats brought back at all," said Wilkins. "That’s always been their stance from the very beginning. Who’s gonna take care of them? Housing is not responsible for taking care of these cats."
"NYCHA says they're in the business of housing people, not cats," said Debi Romano, president of SaveKitty Foundation, repeating what a housing authority official said at a tenant meeting in February. "We tried to explain that it's the people's fault that they [the cats] are there. They were dumped by the tenants and are still being dumped."
Ravenswood is the largest public housing development in Queens. Its 31 buildings occupying 12 city blocks are home to over 4,000 people -- and possibly 600 cats, according to estimates by the animal welfare organizations. Any plan the housing authority adopts to deal with the cats could set a precedent for other public housing developments and city-owned facilities.
"I think if NYCHA, one of the largest housing authorities in the country," adopted trap-neuter-return "everybody else would eventually follow," said Jane Hoffman, president of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals. "It could have wonderful ramifications for the whole concept."
The trap-neuter-return proposal, spearheaded by SaveKitty foundation and backed by the Mayor's Alliance for NYC’s Animals, the ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society and the Humane Society of the United States, is intended to remove a significant number of cats and kittens for adoption. Romano said that number could be as high as 450, but others doubt this.
An important component of any trap-neuter-return project, though, is long-term feeding and care of the returned cats. SaveKitty has pledged to manage the colonies that remain at Ravenswood forever and to remove any newly abandoned cats. And the animal groups promise to provide ongoing spay/neuter services and pet care education to residents.
"I'm always against neutering," resident Berry told Romano with a grimace after learning the plans for male cats. When Romano explained that neutering curbs not only reproduction, but the smell and noise of spraying and fighting, he offered to help.
SaveKitty also proposes setting up well-maintained feeding stations to eliminate the mess of individual tenants’ haphazard feeding.
"Signs are up saying 'please do not feed cats,'" said Patrick Kwan, New York State director of the Humane Society of the United States. "We all know that's not going to work. People are concerned and feeding the animals. The best way of doing it is letting them know the cats are being taken care of and will only be in one area."
But who will maintain the feeding stations remains a question for Wilkins who says she still needs to do a formal survey of how the residents feel about the cats and whether or not they would want to help.
"There are residents here that like the cats, and there are residents here that do not like the cats," said Wilkins. "There are some that don't want them here in the community at all."
Feral cats are not socialized to humans and therefore not suitable for adoption. Any of them trapped and brought to the city-contracted shelter Animal Care and Control would be euthanized. Advocates argue that trap-neuter-return is not only more humane, but more effective and less costly than eradication programs. Neighborhood Cats, a New York City TNR organization, posts a lists of studies in support of these arguments on its website. The group also contends that eradication programs ultimately fail because of the "vacuum effect" -- when cats are removed, new ones come in to occupy their space -- whereas returned cats will keep new cats out and slowly die off naturally.
"People [ask why] when the population goes down over time, it doesn't repopulate?" said Bryan Kortis, executive director of Neighborhood Cats. "And the answer to that is you've got somebody there who is keeping up with the new cats."
In 2002, the Department of Corrections collaborated with Neighborhood Cats, the ASPCA, Animal Care and Control and the Humane Society on a large trap-neuter-return operation on Riker's Island. Over several months, the program trapped more than 300 cats and spayed and neutered them. The ASPCA estimates the island's cat population is now half of what it was before the program.
Gloria Murli, a retired captain for the Department of Corrections, has looked after feral cats on Riker's for over 20 years. Murli and four corrections officers monitor about a dozen feeding stations on the island. She said they use between 800 and 1,000 pounds of food per month, provided mainly through donations of cat food or money.
In 2004, the Urban Cat League ran a small trap-neuter-return project at the Marble Hill houses, a New York City Housing Authority development in the Bronx. The authority gave its blessing for the ongoing management of the returned cats. An estimated 16 cats remain.
Trap-neuter-return does have its critics. Among the fiercest opponents are wildlife conservationists. In a 2009 resolution, Audubon New York stated that free-roaming cats -- be they pets or feral -- kill millions of endangered birds and billions of small mammals each year and spread diseases to wildlife. Colonies, the group said, encourage further abandonment of cats. Conservation biologists also refute claims that trap-neuter-return helps to reduce feral cat populations and dispute the "vacuum effect."
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals believes that even in managed colonies, feral cats are prone to fatal diseases, abuse and serious injury. The group has said, it "cannot in good conscience oppose euthanasia as a humane alternative to dealing with cat overpopulation."
Earlier this year, the housing authority tried to seal entrances to the crawlspaces where the cats live. Romano managed to stop these efforts, saying they would trap nursing kittens. Sealing live animals inside a closed space is against New York State anti-cruelty laws. In early April, the ASPCA's Humane Enforcement division came in. Assistant Director Joe Pentangelo said no cats were found inside but the ASPCA issued a notice that all cats must be removed before areas could be sealed.
On April 30, housing officials and Ravenswood staff met with the animal welfare groups and Animal Care and Control. In an email from its press office, the authority said the parties agreed to let the crawlspaces be sealed after clearing out the cats, and that any cats captured would be turned over to SaveKitty. In a previous statement the authority had said it would turn adult cats over to Animal Care and Control -- almost certainly for euthanasia -- but when SaveKitty protested that that was not the original agreement, the housing agency revised its statement to affirm that cats would be turned over to Romano.
The animal welfare groups also say that they convinced housing authority representatives at the meeting that trap-neuter-return is the only sensible solution to Ravenswood's cat problem and that the housing officials agreed to convey that message to authority Chairman John Rhea.
"The next step certainly will be to go higher up the ladder to get their buy-in on the program," said Kwan of the Humane Society, who attended the meeting. "We're really hoping we can have another sit-down meeting."
State Sen. George Onorato, whose district includes Ravenswood and for whom Romano worked as a housecleaner, supports SaveKitty's proposal and wrote a letter to Rhea "strongly urging" him to meet with the foundation. In a statement, Onorato called the proposal a "well thought out and forward-thinking plan, which will be both humane, cost-effective and, in the long-term, most beneficial to the Ravenswood tenants."
A spokesperson for Onorato said he had not yet received a response.
Currently, the housing authority's only known plan is to flush the cats out of the crawlspaces and seal them. In an email statement, the agency said it has four cat traps and that "NYCHA staff will go into the crawl spaces and first try to get the cats to leave using the existing openings."
"They’re not going to get anything," said Romano. "Any animal outside the crawl spaces they’re not going to bother with, so why not let me fix them and put them back on the property?"
When the crawlspaces are sealed the cats won’t have access to them for shelter.
"There’s no place for them to stay, especially when it comes to winter," said Wilkins of the residents association. “What are they going to do?
If the housing authority does not accept the trap-neuter-return program, its other options would be to do nothing or to eradicate the cats itself. Best Friends Animal Society estimates it would cost the authority $300 per cat to trap and eradicate the animals, not including staff time. The authority did not respond to repeated requests for further comment.
A trap-neuter-return project of the scale advocates foresee, like the Riker’s Island project, would require a massive coordination of resources. The ASPCA has committed its mobile spay/neuter vans and hopes to do a MASH-style clinic on the site. The Mayor’s Alliance would provide transportation and says "trap banks" throughout the city may be able to provide traps. Holding space would be required for pre-and post surgical care.
"If NYCHA could open spaces in their buildings that would be huge," said Hoffman.
Volunteers will have to be mobilized for trapping and to care for the animals before and after surgery. Shelter space will need to be found for the adoptable cats. The Mayor’s Alliance says it could ask their 160 partner organizations, most of them adoptions groups, to take cats. Best Friends Animal Society said it would also work to find placement.
"If NYCHA allowed the project to go forward, we'd have an enormous amount of assistance," said Hoffman. "I can't imagine people would not want to help -- it would be such an important milestone."
Although it's impossible to know the actual number of feral cats in the city, estimates range from 500,000 to 800,000. The average female can have two litters of four to six kittens a year. In the face of these numbers, the Mayor’s Alliance’s seeks to end euthanasia of healthy, unwanted animals in New York City by 2015.
"The only way we'll become a no-kill city is to focus both on feral cats and owned pets," said Hoffman.
Nearly 3,000 volunteers in the city have been trained in trap-neuter-return in three-hour introductory workshops offered by the New York City Feral Cat Initiative. Graduates can borrow traps and access free spay/neuter services and rabies vaccinations at ASPCA mobile clinics. However, volunteers must provide transportation and space to hold the cats before and after surgery, and often must pay for supplies, additional veterinary care and ongoing costs of food for colonies.
Councilmember Letitia James, who supports the Ravenswood project, plans to reintroduce a resolution calling for a city-wide trap-neuter-return program conducted by Animal Care and Control. Meanwhile, if the housing authority were to accept trap-neuter-return at Ravenswood, advocates think it would have a huge impact in the city and across the nation.
"We share their goal of not having any cats there," said Kwan of the Humane Society of NYCHA and Ravenswood, "but there's no magic light switch we can flip and have them disappear."
The sad story of Oreo the dog made headlines last year. Now her unfortunate death may spur a change in state law that could, supporters believe, ultimately lead to saving more animals from being put to sleep.
Oreo, a one-year-old pit bull mix, was thrown off the sixth floor roof of a Brooklyn public housing project. After surviving the fall, she was rescued by the ASPCA, which operated on her broken ribs and legs, nursing her back to "health" over the next several months. However, ASPCA professionals ultimately deemed Oreo to be too aggressive, the result of so much trauma, and decided she had to be euthanized.
Pets Alive, a group opposed to euthanasia and claiming to have experience in animal rehabilitation, tried to save Oreo. Its representatives maintain the ASPCA willfully ignored those efforts. While the ASPCA disputes that, Oreo was eventually put down.
Thus followed an uproar from the animal rescue community. Almost immediately, Manhattan Assemblymember Micah Kellner submitted legislation -- "Oreo's Law" -- to prevent adoptable pets from being destroyed; Tom Duane sponsored a similar version in the State Senate. Advocates include assorted local and national rescue and no-kill organizations and several of the nation's top law professors.
While most rescuers agree that sometimes an animal is indeed too injured to save, a key issue concerns determining whether an animal's damage or suffering is "too" great. Moreover, many in the community argue that city shelters and established organizations like the ASPCA may use euthanasia on healthy animals or on animals that could become healthy because of space or financial constraints. Oreo's law "requires the release of a shelter animal to a rescue group upon request of the rescue group prior to euthanasia of the animal." Supporters believe greater access for more no-kill rescue groups will translate into more animals being spared.
Kellner's bill is based on a 10-year-old California law named for former State Sen. Tom Hayden, who wanted to reform that state's shelter system. The goals included promoting animal adoption, reducing euthanasia rates and creating a system for animal control shelters to place at-risk animals with no-kill groups instead of killing them. According to Kellner, Oreo's Law is a "bigger Hayden's Law for New York."
The original version has been rewritten to address concerns of opponents and proponents alike. It now includes establishing liability, exempting animals deemed dangerous by a court of law, and prohibits rescue groups that have been charged with or convicted of neglect, abuse, or dog fighting from being able to take animals. The bill also includes a definition of physical suffering.
"This is the best possible compromise for the greatest number of animals," Kellner observed.
Detractors, though, fear shelters would be forced to turn over animals to just any rescue group -- whether suitable or not; that some groups might horde animals or worse; and the law would create additional expenses for providers like the ASPCA by requiring longer hours, additional staff and larger facilities.
Traditionally, most animal rescue organizations are volunteer efforts aimed at rescuing otherwise healthy homeless animals and placing them in foster or permanent homes. The animals usually come from the street or municipal shelters.
In New York City, the Mayor’s Alliance for Animals was founded in 2002, and consists of approximately 160 rescue non-profits with a no-kill (anti-euthanasia) objective by 2015. (February is I Love NYC Pets month, a series of events designed to encourage adoption.
The ASPCA is a founding member of the alliance and, according to Anita Kelso Edson, its senior director of media and communications, provides significant funding to the Mayor's Alliance.
After the ASPCA stopped running city shelters in 1994, the city created Animal Care and Control to fill the void in animal control the next year. Edson said the ASPCA also provides that group with funding.
"The ASPCA 'pulls' more animals from AC&C than any other single agency,” wrote Edson in an email. The society, she said, took in "more than 1,200 dogs and cats" in 2009, including many in need of medical care. According to Edson, a total of 17,600 cats and dogs were transferred out of Animal Care and Control by all groups and individuals in 2009.
Rescuers say taking animals from the Animal Care and Control, and finding other homes for them is of the utmost importance because of terrible overcrowding there. They believe this overcrowding has lead to the death of countless animals because there’s been no room for them.
Supporters of Oreo's law said it would reduce overcrowding by allowing more groups to pull animals from Animal Care and Control. That would lead to more animal being placed, reducing the likelihood of euthanasia.
This issue was underscored by a recent emergency email disseminated by an Animal Care employee. "We need your help! Our shelter is COMPLETELY full. We are even turning away owner surrenders because we have NO cage space. … We have no room and that means tomorrow’s euth list is going to be enormous," pleaded the worker.
In response to the communiqué, Animal Care director of administrative services Richard Gentles emailed that the shelter tries, "to maintain open cage space for newly arriving animals. … Each day people are in our shelters adopting and we are transferring animals to rescue groups. Therefore, cage/kennel space is always being turned over."
In a later email, Gentles admitted, "We unfortunately have to euthanize animals for space, behavior and illness."
The dispute over Oreo's Laws comes as Animal Care and Control's euthanasia rates have hit at an all-time low. As recently as 2002 the euthanasia level was as high as 75 to 80 percent, reported Shelter Reform Action Committee. It’s currently about 32 percent.
Gentles credited the decline to work with the mayor's Alliance for Animals and to new initiatives. For example, the New Hope Program serves as a network to distribute animals who aren't adopted directly from the Animal Care. Maddie's Fund is a low-cost spay/neuter project, available to city residents on public assistance.
Despite such efforts, almost 43,000 animals still enter the city's shelter system every year. Meanwhile, Animal Care and Control, like all city agencies, faces budget cuts. It's "about a 4 percent decrease in FY10," according to Gentles, but "the impact on operations is unknown."
"We don't want to lose any ground. We don't want to take steps back," he continued. And, "we don't want to euthanize animals for space."
Oreo's Law, according to Kellner, would save cities money by transferring some costs, such as housing and feeding as well as euthanasia, onto participating rescue groups.
The law also would provide more groups with access to animals needing care. Currently, critics charge that the criteria use by the alliance and Animal Care to accept or reject partners can be capricious and even punitive.
"It's willy-nilly," said Kellner, who recounted tales of groups being arbitrarily or incorrectly barred from the network.
Brooklyn Animal Foster Network director Laurie Bleier recounted online how a previous Animal Care director disqualified her organization after it had removed more than 1,000 animals from Animal Care. "My group was banned because one of my dogs in foster care was found to be emaciated," she wrote. "After a thorough investigation … those charges were found to be completely baseless and the case was dropped. Despite our complete exoneration ... we have not had due process to regain our status."
The bill has exposed rifts in the animal rights community. One of the measure's strongest advocates is Nathan Winograd, director of the No-Kill Advocacy Center, who touts it as a "second chance for animals." He said some groups in the alliance fear reprisals if they support the measure. For its part, Winograd believes the alliance worries the bill could reduce its influence. "If this law passes, and the grassroots is empowered, they lose control," he said in an email.
Alliance president Jane Hoffman sought to downplay the rift. "We are all working toward the same goal -– to save animals lives. ... Shelters and rescue groups are not and should not be enemies," she responded in her own email.
Hoffman said the alliance does not take positions on legislation." However, as an animal lawyer, she has concluded "that there are better ways of developing cooperation between shelters and rescue groups" than Oreo's law.
The organization most vociferously opposed to Kellner's bill has been the ASPCA. At the time of Oreo's death, it released a statement, saying, "We have done everything humanly possible to save Oreo's life; yet, as a result of the abuse she suffered ... she has come to a place where she can no longer be around people or other animals. We make this decision -- and others like it -- with a heavy heart."
The group thinks the law might place too many restrictions on shelters. "A successful transfer program requires … discretion on the part of shelters to determine, in good faith, whether transfer is in the best interests of the individual animal, the shelter and the public-at-large," Edson wrote, especially in New York State, where shelters and rescue organizations are largely unregulated.
Ironically, Oreo's Law advocates say that National ASPCA president and CEO Ed Sayres championed Hayden's law. And in 1999, when Sayres was president of the San Francisco chapter of the SPCA, he testified against its repeal.
"There is no inherent discrepancy -- laws in different states even on the same subject can be very different, " wrote Edson. "That was a comprehensive law change after a lot of public hearings and deliberation, and it was also 10 years ago, and in a different state where there was a serious problem."
The ASPCA has faced widespread criticism for its position on the New York bill. Protests have been staged in front of its building and Sayres' residence. Online petitions have called for Sayres' resignation, and numerous web postings have assailed the organization.
According to Winograd and Kellner, the ASPCA has been on the defensive since Oreo's death and the euthanasia of a dog named Max in December. "To have the incident memorialized forever by the name of the proposed law would be to remind animal lovers of that betrayal," Winograd wrote. "They are trying to confuse groups and others into opposing the law by claiming it would put animals in harm's way by opening them up to being placed in hoarding situations or with dog fighters."
Additionally, the ASPCA's opposition also explains why certain rescue groups and the alliance won't take an official position on Oreo's Law, according to Winograd. "Some are supporting the ASPCA because they are financially beholden to the ASPCA or want a share in the ASPCA’s largesse," he said.
Enmity against the ASPCA has gotten so bad that one group, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, tried to mediate between the two sides. "We're trying to get folks around the table. A lot has been personal," described Francis Battista, Best Friend's cofounder.
As the debate swirls, some animal advocates fear people have lost sight of the real issue -- that too many, usually healthy, animals are euthanized every day. The debate has "become distorted, and out of context," complained Jennifer Panton, president of United Action for Animals and co-creator/head of the Animal Care and Control's Cruelty Seizure Committee. "The public needs to be reminded, on average per day, 45 animals are put to sleep."
For its part, the ASPCA may be backing off from its opposition to Oreo's law. "We understand that amendments to recently proposed legislation have been drafted and address some of our concerns," Edson wrote. "As always, our goal is to help develop or support legislation that we believe will do the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of animals."
Jillian Jonas is a freelance journalist focusing on local and national politics, government and public policy. She is a former national political analyst for U.P.I.