Pet-Friendly Housing is on the Rise, But Housing Insecurity is Forcing More Owners to Surrender Their Pets, Study Finds

Housing policies may be becoming more pet inclusive, but housing insecurity is getting worse, finds a new study that examined the housing issues that led to owners turning their pets over to an animal shelter.

According to the study, which appears in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Medicine, housing issues represent 14% of intakes to animal shelters.

The study team analyzed 2019-2023 data from Human-Animal Support Services, a nonprofit organization that works to keep pets with their owners through community and animal shelter initiatives. The data included 28,000 housing-related relinquishment records from 21 U.S. shelters Human-Animal Support Services is working with on progressive initiatives. The study data spans before, during, and after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a number of factors affected pet adoption and housing, including stay-at-home orders, a federal eviction moratorium, and shelter policy changes to limit in-person contact. Following an increase in pet adoptions early in the pandemic, recent media reports have described shelter trends of lower pet adoption rates and increased pet relinquishments.