Animal welfare organizations form Pet Housing Help AZ

Recent rent and housing price surges have forced many pet owners to make the tough decision of keeping their homes or their pets. In the past year alone, Phoenix has witnessed a 28% increase in rent forcing Phoenicians out of their home and into the street.

Now, 7 animal welfare organizations in Arizona formed the Pet Housing Help AZ task force to offer resources to impacted citizens who can no longer afford their pets. Adoptions, fostering, and temporary homes are options available to anyone suffering from gouged rent prices.

The Arizona Animal Welfare league is one of the seven organizations that have come together to create an online “one stop shop”  for individuals who are having to choose between their homes and their pets. Alessandra Navidad, the President and CEO of the Arizona Animal Welfare League said that Pet Housing Help AZ helps struggling pet owners connect to a wide community of resources who want to help them keep their pets.

“It’s essentially us coming together, with support from government… with the community itself to step up and say ‘we’ve got to begin to address this problem,” Navidad said.

The task force was originally formed to combat the eviction rate following the lift of the moratorium. One year later, the eviction rate is high but not just because of COVID and the moratorium, but because of the housing market and the dramatic increase in rent prices.

“It is the reality that we are seeing, and a lot of people who contact us are desperate, they’re having to move, they’re being evicted and they have animals and they don’t know who to turn to,” Navidad said.