Harlem Shelter Houses Domestic Violence Victims — and Pets

The Urban Women’s Retreat in Harlem launches a pilot program that allows families to live with their pets.

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By Samantha McDonald

On the last day Jasmin Rivera lived in her Bronx apartment, the partner* with whom she’d spent nearly two decades assaulted her twice.

After the first incident, she grabbed her two Shih Tzus, Tony and Teresa, and fled the building for her mother’s house. Then she went to work at the City University of New York, where she taught.

“I left my apartment for fear of my safety,” Rivera said. “I simply said, ‘This is not me.’ I had to change something. I had to get out of there.”

Later in the day, she returned home to collect her belongings but decided against calling police. That’s when the second attack came, resulting in a broken ankle.

Homeless and injured, Rivera needed a place to live – an apartment on the first floor because she was using crutches. She also refused to leave Tony and Teresa with her abuser. But most domestic violence shelters didn’t welcome pets.

Then she learned about a Brooklyn shelter with a program called People and Animals Living Safely (PALS), where domestic violence survivors can live with their pets. Rivera and her dogs moved into a first floor unit and have been living there since April 2014.

“The support that they’ve given me there was not only support that was for me, but support for my animals, because they were affected and traumatized also by what happened,” she said.

This summer, the Urban Resource Institute, which founded PALS, experimentally expanded the program to the Urban Women’s Retreat in Harlem, where this week the institute opened Manhattan’s first dog park in a domestic violence shelter.

“We were keeping people out by not having a model,” said Nathaniel Fields, the institute’s president.

Since starting PALS, the institute has supported 43 families and 63 pets: 38 cats, 18 dogs, six turtles and a fish. It owns four domestic violence shelters in the city, but the Harlem refuge is the only one in Manhattan to include 12 pet-friendly apartments among its 45 units.

“What’s unique about our facilities is that families don’t share common space,” said Lydia Colon-Fores, the Harlem shelter’s program director. “We work with the families so that they understand their responsibilities with their pets.”

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Each pet-friendly apartment is equipped with welcome kits that include pet carriers, safety gates, scratching posts, beds and food supplies. The dog park, named the Purina Pet Haven, allows domestic violence victims to play with their pets outdoors and features dog houses, ramps and a tunnel.

“We give them the opportunity to spend time together – to get outside, to play and ultimately to heal together,” Purina veterinarian Kurt Venator said. “Transitioning into life after domestic violence can be a little bit easier when individuals and families can make the journey together with the pets that they love.”

Women may continue to live with their batterers for a variety of complex reasons. But according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, up to 48 percent of women choose to remain in abusive relationships fearing what might happen to their pets. The American Humane Association has also reported that 71 percent of animal owners who enter women’s shelters reveal that the abuser has threatened, injured or killed a family pet.

Although her abuser had not been physically violent toward Tony and Teresa, Rivera said she felt it was only a matter of time before that happened.*

“I would never have left them behind,” she said. “I would probably have put myself in danger to make sure that they stayed with me.”

Rivera said she felt paranoid when she first arrived at the shelter. She had developed post-traumatic stress disorder and worked closely with a PALS coordinator, a position established with the help of a $75,000 grant from the ASPCA.

As the city’s first and only PALS coordinator, Ann Michitsch helped Rivera and her dogs adjust to the new environment. Rivera said the ASPCA assisted her by paying for vaccinations and veterinary care, which allowed her to focus on her own individual therapy and group meetings.

“It helped me gain the confidence I needed to see myself in a different light, as a person who is a survivor and not a victim,” Rivera said. “My pets – my babies – they gave me the sense of strength to fight to become … a person who can keep herself safe.”

The Harlem shelter provides counseling, psychotherapy referrals, housing and daycare as well as veterinary care, including microchipping and spaying or neutering.

“It used to be a death sentence for animals entering into the animal care and control program,” said Jenny Coffey, a social worker at the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, which works with the Urban Resource Institute. “Now these animals that are coming in have the best chances of getting out.”

Michitsch said the PALS support team helps individuals who are ready to leave the shelter find permanent housing and checks in with them periodically.

“We need to know that they’re safe,” she said.

As she prepares to leave the Brooklyn shelter, Rivera is waiting to move to her own apartment. She said that she still has trouble trusting people, but she now has a better understanding of life beyond domestic abuse.

“That’s always the challenge – transitioning from living in a shelter to actually making that next big step, which is having your own place,” Rivera said. “It’s a day at a time.”

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(Photos by Samantha McDonald)

 

*Correction: The article originally reported that Rivera’s partner was male. After publication, a spokesperson for the Urban Resource Institute notified The Uptowner that Rivera had been in a same-sex relationship.

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