The City of Seattle responded to our letter regarding the lack of animal services being included in plans for the City's future on February 27, 2024. Below is the response. You can see our initial feedback to last year's draft here.
The One Seattle Plan was updated based on the first round of public feedback and the updated draft was released for citizen feedback on March 5, 2024. We are currently reviewing the updated draft to determine what, if any, of our feedback was incorporated. Citizen feedback is due by May 6, 2024, so please keep an eye out for another call to action based on what we do (or don't) see in the updated draft!
Hi, Elise,
Thank you so much for reaching out and for your advocacy on behalf of Seattle’s animals. Thank you also for raising these considerations for the City’s Comprehensive Plan. As you likely know, development of the plan is being led by the City’s Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD). They received input from over 3,000 constituents to inform the upcoming Draft Plan, including the areas you identified in your e-mail. The Mayor is scheduled to release his Draft Plan in the next two weeks, and this will include a 60-day public comment period. Visit https://engage.oneseattleplan.com/ to be notified of the plan’s release and to provide comment directly to the plan.
We appreciate and share in your belief that animal services are “not a niche interest.” It’s a pressing social and public health issue that impacts every resident, and we’re in the midst of a cultural transformation at the Seattle Animal Shelter that we hope better reflects this reality.
Some of the questions you raised—specifically as they relate to staffing—are tied to budget. Unfortunately, and as you may know, the City is faced with a $250 million budget deficit which limits our ability to increase staffing at this time. We are working creatively within our budget to better meet communities where they are, thanks to the support of key partners like the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation (SASF).
Over the past year we worked with nationally-recognized animal welfare consultants to conduct a top-down review of our services and help us identify ways to better serve Seattle’s pets and residents. The ultimate goal of this work is to become a more community-centric animal shelter, one that seeks to keep animals out of the shelter and in their homes with their families. We just consolidated many of the key findings from the consultants’ work, as well as input from volunteers and staff, to create a two-year roadmap that will help guide our work at the shelter. The work itself has over 200 action items, some that are technical and in-the-weeds and others that are more high-level.
Two areas that you identified—the need to better address how housing insecurity and poverty impact Seattle pet owners and the need for expanded outreach to marginalized communities—are also focus areas for us. You may already be aware, but thanks in part to funds provided by the SASF, we just launched the first ever free pet vaccination clinics in the shelter’s history. These clinics are hosted monthly. We’ve held two so far—one in the Chinatown-International District and one in Rainier Beach. Both clinics filled up before the event even started, which just demonstrates how great the need is out in communities. We’ve prioritized language access at these clinics because our hope is to serve the residents in those communities. In total, we’ve provided free vaccinations to over 225 pets, and the clinics have results in 74 spay and neuter appointments.
We realize this e-mail does not address every item you raised—specifically around staffing and capacity. We feel grateful to have such a robust foster program that has enabled the shelter to better weather some of the trends we’ve all read about nationally that have caused shelters to burst at the seams. Part of our two-year roadmap is implementing tools, building processes and creating ways to better support and build this program, as well as our adoption program, so we can move animals into homes and out of the shelter faster.
Thank you again for your time and your advocacy. It’s greatly appreciated.
Melissa