New York City animal shelters have been overcrowded for decades. It got so bad last year that shelters were forced to temporarily stop pet intake due to the overwhelming number of surrenders and abandonments. 

Animal-loving volunteers and local independent rescue groups are everywhere but they cannot keep up.

There is a solution. But first we must travel upstream to understand the root cause instead of blaming our city’s animal shelters for a problem they cannot solve. 

The Real Problem

In the wealthiest city in the world, so many of our neighbors’ pets go without the veterinary care they all deserve. In fact, more than 50% of pet owners can no longer afford a basic vet visit, let alone a spay neuter appointment (which now costs more than $1,000 at many NYC vet clinics). 

Affordability is the top issue for New Yorkers across the board. It’s also the #1 reason why people are surrendering their pets to shelters – and why so many sadly say they may never be able to adopt again. 

To tackle this issue head on, local non-profit Flatbush Cats recently built the brand new 3,700-square-foot Flatbush Veterinary Clinic. Here they will provide tens of thousands of spay neuter surgeries and wellness appointments in the coming years – at affordable rates – with initial pilot funding from Councilman Justin Brannan. 

Now it’s time to scale. We need several affordable veterinary clinics like Flatbush Vet in every borough to keep more pets together with their families. And with thousands of cats and dogs flooding municipal shelters every year, we need to act now. 

Everyone Wins With Access to Care

Everyone benefits from affordable access to veterinary care: pet owners, rescuers, shelters, and taxpayers. We can keep thousands of pets with their families where they belong, and out of shelters, for a fraction of what it costs to house them currently. 

Currently, New York City spends less than 5% of its animal welfare budget on high impact, upstream measures like spay neuter – which has been proven to reduce overpopulation and shelter intake. The City has typically looked the other way and relied on citizens and non-profit organizations to volunteer to solve the public problem of stray and abandoned cats. Rescue volunteers show up for everything from hoarding and abuse cases to an abandoned sick cat on the subway. Over many years, an ecosystem of hundreds of tiny neighborhood rescue organizations have popped up to fill the vacuum of city services. But it is wrong for our government to continue taking advantage of compassionate animal-loving New Yorkers by expecting them to continue digging into their own pockets to solve these problems and it’s time we called it out. 

The good news is that the City of New York can correct this imbalance by allocating real funding in next year’s budget to ensure more pet owners and rescuers have affordable access to spay neuter services. 

Let’s be clear: we cannot rescue, adopt, or shelter our way out of this crisis. But we can move upstream and prevent more pets from ever needing help. It’s time to do the right thing for New York City pets and their families. City-funded affordable veterinary clinics will keep pets with their families and reduce the burden on independent rescue groups and our overcrowded shelters. 

Justin Brannan represents southern Brooklyn in the City Council. Allie Taylor is the President of Voters for Animal Rights. Will Zweigart is the Founder & Executive Director of Flatbush Cats.

The New York City Council on Thursday passed a package of bills addressing the legacy and impact of slavery in the city, aiming to advance racial justice for millions of New Yorkers of African descent.

Shortly before the vote, a coalition of elected officials, community leaders, and advocates gathered on the steps of City Hall — built by enslaved Africans — to outline the details and significance of the legislation.

Slavery is often associated with the South, but in the 1700s, New York City had one of the highest rates of slave ownership in the country. A slave market operated on Wall Street — built by enslaved people — between Pearl and Water streets from 1711 to 1762. Although New York abolished slavery in 1827, Wall Street continued to profit from the illegal international trade of enslaved Africans, conducting business with visiting slave owners and trading goods produced through slave labor.

One proposal, Intro 279-A, sponsored by Council Member Farah Louis (D-Brooklyn), requires the Commission on Racial Equity (CORE) to study the impact of slavery in New York City and consider reparative measures.

“The reparations movement is often misunderstood as merely a call for compensation for the enslaved Africans who built this country and this city, but it is far more than that,” Louis said. “It is a testament of our unwavering commitment to acknowledging and addressing the deep-rooted injustices that have plagued our society for centuries.”

Another bill, Intro 833, sponsored by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, requires the city to install a historical marker at the correct site of the city’s first open-air slave market at the intersection of Wall and Pearl streets. A sign installed in 2015 at Wall and Water streets turned out to be at the wrong location.

Williams highlighted the significance of the legislation at a time when some states are attempting to erase the history of slavery and racism.

“When you find out that the first commodity on Wall Street was actually human beings that looked like myself and my relatives, that does a lot to you,” he said.

Council Member Nantasha Williams (D-Queens), Chair of the Committee on Civil and Human Rights, sponsored Intro 471, which establishes a task force to create a citywide freedom trail, including one in Lower Manhattan.

“This package of bills is not only about reparations. It’s not only about the truth, because we know across the country we are seeing truth completely eviscerated,” Williams said. “It is also about making sure that we remember, through markers and trails.”

Council Member Crystal Hudson (D-Brooklyn) sponsored Intro 242-A, which requires CORE to create a Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation Process to address the ongoing harm slavery continues to cause in Black and Brown communities.

“Our nation’s inability to properly redress such a historic wrong allows this deep injustice to continue to manifest itself in distinct and tangible ways, be it the prison industrial complex, predatory lending, redlining, or inequality in our school systems,” Hudson said.

New York State has already taken similar steps. In December, Governor Kathy Hochul signed S1163A, a bill that established the “New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies,” creating a statewide reparations task force.

State Senator James Sanders Jr. (D-Queens) and Assembly Member Michaelle Solages (D-Long Island), who sponsored the bill in the State Legislature, joined their local colleagues for the historic vote.

Sanders reminded the audience that enslaved Black people built Wall Street. Freed slaves were given land north of Wall Street, but only because, if attacked by Indigenous tribes, they would be the ones on the front line.

“But that was a Black area. Imagine what that land would be worth if those people still owned that land,” Sanders said. “This is what we’re talking about when we speak about reparations. We’re not speaking about something from a billion years ago. We’re speaking about something today and ongoing.”