One Crisis, One Family: The Case for Interspecies and Intersectional Approaches to Philanthropic Giving

Orginial PDF version available here: https://philab.uqam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/One-Crisis-One-Family-The-Case-for-Interspecies-and-Intersectional-Approaches-to-Philanthropic-Giving.pdf

No matter the crisis, be it in large-scale events such as wars and natural disasters, or individual crises, families refuse to be separated from their companion animals (Macdonald, 2025, p.66). When forced to do so, this leads to devastating guilt and additional trauma when forced to do so. Alternatively, people remain in dangerous situations to stay with their pets. From the animal welfare perspective, shelters continue to be filled with surrendered pets and spend millions of dollars to care for and rehome them (Macdonald, 2022).

What if philanthropy could fund sustainable solutions by considering human and animal crises as one problem?

Crises that affect humans don't spare their animal companions.

The numbers indicate the scale of the problem. With over 60% of Canadian households sharing their lives with cats or dogs (Blair, 2026), crises rarely respect the species divide. When a family loses housing, the pet loses housing. When domestic violence escalates, animals face abuse alongside their owners. When food security grips a household, the dog goes unfed. Yet our response systems remain siloed: human services for people, animal services for pets, and a widening gap where both fall through.

What emerges when we refuse this division? One Welfare (2025) and One Health (WHO, 2026) are two frameworks gaining traction across disciplines. They offer a different perspective: human, animal, and environmental well-being are fundamentally connected. From this foundation, a new generation of collaborations is taking shape. Nonprofits are crossing traditional boundaries, funders are rethinking grant structures, and policy campaigns are demanding intersectional solutions.

If this is the case, why aren’t more grantmaking efforts directed towards crisis responses that consider animals?

This article examines how specific social crises have catalyzed these shifts, spotlighting collaborative initiatives that address housing, food security, addiction, intimate partner violence (IPV), and shelter overpopulation not as separate challenges, but as interconnected problems demanding integrated responses and how grantmaking would benefit from adopting a similar perspective.

How the housing and food insecurity crises affect all members of the family

The national housing crisis in Canada remains one of the country’s biggest challenges (Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, 2024). As families struggle to find affordable housing, one factor can make the search even more challenging: pets.

According to Eagan, Gordon, and Protopopova (2022), 17% of dog surrenders in British Columbia shelters were surrendered due to housing issues. In a podcast interview, Kathy Powelson of Paws for Hope, a nonprofit offering temporary housing for pets in British Columbia, shared how she deals with this situation daily, with families calling in desperate to find a temporary solution for their pets as they search for affordable housing (Macdonald, 2024).

A quick search for rentals in the Metro Vancouver area for under 2,000$ a month initially identified 309 listings. When the “Pets” filter was added, only 131 rentals remained, representing a nearly 60% drop in options¹.

No-pet policies represent a significant additional barrier to affordable housing for the majority of the Canadian population with nonprofits across the country claiming similar situations, from the Winnipeg Humane Society (2026) to the Montreal SPCA (2025).

PHOTO: Keeping Families together Montreal SPCA. Source: Montreal SPCA, 2026

Alongside the housing crisis, food insecurity is on the rise. In 2023, 22.9% of Canadians were food insecure (Fafard St-Germain & Tarasuck, 2025). This situation affected families’ ability to care for their pets. As Barbara Cartright, the CEO of Humane Canada, stated in an interview about the organization’s National Pet Food Bank project, stated “Food costs are going up, vet care costs have skyrocketed, and even access to veterinarians is much more difficult. So we have all of these intersecting crises coming together that make it very difficult for people to access the resources they need." (Levesque, 2024).

Families are facing a multitude of simultaneous crises: the housing crisis, heightened by no-pet policies, and a rise in food insecurity, are forcing families to make impossible choices: find a home, feed their family, or keep their companion animal.

When seeking help comes with an unbearable price tag

Three of the vulnerable populations at risk of not seeking out or receiving the help they need because of their pets are the unhoused, victims of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), and people suffering from addiction (Montreal SPCA, 2025; Barbosa-Torres et al., 2024; Macdonald, 2024). Some of the most common challenges faced by pet-owning members of these vulnerable groups are: access to affordable veterinary care for their pets, access to housing or shelter that accepts them and their pets, and accessing treatment or help without needing to surrender their animals (Macdonald, 2024).

Paws for Hope is an organization that helps in times of crisis by offering a temporary home for people’s pets as they try to find pet-friendly, affordable housing, escape IPV, or seek addiction treatment. Their stories will help provide real-world examples of the connection between families and their pets, and how this connection impacts the outcomes they face during crises.

Pets don’t judge our situation. For many individuals going through challenging times, their pets become a source of hope and companionship that is stronger than their ties with other people. The story of Raine exemplifies this bond (Hoshooley, 2025). Raine was experiencing homelessness when she sought out veterinary care for her puppy, Cane, through Paws for Hope. Being able to keep her pet healthy and safe as she was unhoused taught her about responsibility and inspired her return to school, where she studied shelter and veterinary medicine.

PHOTO CANE Source: Paws for Hope, 2025 : Cane and Raine.

Excluding pets from social service plans can lead to suboptimal outcomes. Research has demonstrated the intimate connection between pets and victims of IPV seeking out help (Montgomery et al., 2024). When considering leaving their abusive situation, the fear of retribution on their pets (Barbosa-Torres et al., 2024) and the simple fact that many shelters do not accept pets acts as a deterrent.

Kathy Powelson recalls a case in which a woman called at 4 pm on a Friday, asking them to take her two large dogs because her abusive partner was finally out of the house and she needed to leave immediately (Macdonald, 2024). Finding a place for her animals was a priority in her plan to seek out help. Luckily, Paws for Hope partner shelters had space, allowing them to place the dogs there temporarily until they could find a longer-term foster family solution. Thanks to this intervention, the woman was not only able to escape an abusive situation, but she also had the time to find safe and affordable housing, knowing her pets were safe. Had no one been there to temporarily house her pets, this woman might not have been able to seek help, representing a service gap.

The same can be said for individuals seeking out addiction treatment. Similar to shelters for the unhoused and victims of IPV, most rehabilitation centers do not allow pets, hindering pet owners suffering from addiction from deciding to seek out help for fear of abandoning their pet. Kathy shares the story of an individual calling in when a spot opened up in a recovery center, but they had only two hours to find somewhere to leave their dog, or risk losing their opportunity.

It has been shown that, for people in vulnerable situations, pets are a source of emotional support, a sense of belonging, and for many, the only family they have (Dell & Butt, 2023). The act or threat of being separated from their animals can lead to additional trauma, guilt, and lower their chances of seeking out the help they need.

From Crisis to Collaborative Solutions

The pattern is clear: crises don't fracture families along species lines. Pet owners facing homelessness, violence, or addiction overwhelmingly refuse to abandon their animals, even when keeping them means staying in danger, remaining unhoused, or forgoing treatment. Even in extreme cases like natural disasters, people refuse to abandon their pets, such as in the case of Hurricane Katrina, where 50% of those who stayed behind and lost their lives did so to stay with their pets (Animal Welfare Institute, 2017). Force the choice and the outcome is predictable: people suffer without their pets, remain in dangerous situations, and animals flood shelters from families desperate to keep them. All three paths are undesirable.

However, by approaching these issues through an intersectional lens, collaborations between human-focused and animal nonprofits find solutions. They create interventions that keep families together through crisis, shelters less burdened and improve outcomes for all.

Temporary pet housing

Organizations like Paws for Hope act as intermediaries between social and animal services by offering temporary housing for pets in times of crisis. They help avoid countless unnecessary animal surrenders to already overcrowded animal shelters. And they’re not alone. Animal shelters across the country are adopting similar initiatives, including the Alberta SPCA (2025), The Humane Society of Kitchener Waterloo & Stratford Perth and the Edmonton Humane Society (2026), to name a few.

The United States is seeing a similar influx in initiatives such as Praline’s Backyard Foundation (2026), which offers temporary housing for victims of IPV. The Potter League for Animals in Rhode Island opened up a Community Navigator position on their team, bridging the gap between animal welfare and social services. In the words of their Executive Director, Brad Shear:

A study conducted by Gemma C. Ma, Jioji Ravulo and Ursula McGeown in 2023 attempted to calculate the social value of such programs through a case study of the RSPCA New South Wales in Australia. The quotes from interviewed program participants include countless mentions of how their companion animals were their reason for living, having been by their side through multiple crises, showcasing the importance of their animals in their lives. The self-reported outcomes of the program included: improved mental health and wellbeing for the individuals, improved personal safety, increased social inclusion and decreased isolation, improved physical health and 71% stated how the program gave them access to safe accommodation (Ma et al., 2023).

The study also demonstrated how this program leads to fewer animals being abandoned, as 37% of respondents claimed they would have had to surrender their animals had the program not existed. Finally, the estimated social return of this temporary pet housing program was eightfold (Ma et al., 2023), demonstrating the potential social returns of increased philanthropic funding for similar programs.

Policy reform

Sustainable solutions to crises like housing insecurity demand policy intervention. The Montreal SPCA’s Keeping Families Together campaign is calling for the abolition of no-pet clauses in housing, using Ontario’s provincial legislation as precedent (Montreal SPCA, 2025). On a national level, Humane Canada is also working on Pet Inclusive Housing policies and advocacy (2024a). Both argue that these clauses disproportionally affect vulnerable populations such as the elderly and isolated individuals, for whom the mental health benefits are stronger.

Food Security

National crises like food security require national responses. Humane Canada’s National Pet Food Bank Map, in collaboration with PetSmart Charities, was launched in 2024 in response to rising food insecurity (Humane Canada, 2024b). By distributing grants to help formalize existing programs run by local charities, this initiative helped map out over 300 locations where families in need could find food for their pets as well.

PHOTO: Humane Canada National Food Bank Map

Conclusion

Pets are woven into Canadian family life. The examples here prove what becomes possible when we stop treating human crises and animal welfare as separate domains: families stay intact through trauma, shelters stop warehousing animals from loving homes, and solutions address root causes rather than symptoms.

However, philanthropic funding for animal shelter programs remains limited (Macdonald, 2022), although the positive implications for communities are significant. Intersectional approaches don't just improve outcomes; they unlock entirely new funding pathways. An animal shelter partnering with an IPV organization becomes eligible for violence prevention grants. An addiction treatment program offering pet fostering can access animal welfare funding to remove a critical barrier to care. These aren't creative workarounds; they're logical extensions of what the work actually requires.

What emerges is a funding landscape that reflects reality. The question is no longer whether human and animal welfare are linked. The question now is whether our funding structures, organizational partnerships, and policy frameworks will evolve to match what frontline work has already proven: the human-animal bond deserves more than our current siloed systems.

References:

Alberta SPCA. (2025). Pet Safekeeping Program: Safety for Animals & People in Crisis. https://www.albertaspca.org/what-we-do/pet-safekeeping-program/

Barbosa-Torres, C., Bueno-Galán, M.M., Bueso-Izquierdo, N. et al. (2024). Intimate partner violence and domestic violence linked to animal abuse: a review of the literature. Current Psychology 43, 32200–32209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06731-w

Animal Welfare Institute (2017). Katrina's Lesson Learned: Animals No Longer Excluded from Storm Evacuations. Animal Welfare Institute Quarterly. https://awionline.org/awi-quarterly/winter-2017/katrinas-lesson-learned-animals-no-longer-excluded-storm-evacuations

Blair, N. (2026, January 22). Pet Ownership Statistics in Canada. Made in CA. https://madeinca.ca/pet-ownership-statistics-canada/.

Dell, C. A.; Butt, P. (2023). Recognizing the Role of Companion Animals in Addiction Recovery. The Canadian Journal of Addiction 14(2):p 6-8. https://journals.lww.com/cja/fulltext/2023/06000/recognizing_the_role_of_companion_animals_in.2.aspx

Eagan BH, Gordon E, Protopopova A. Reasons for Guardian-Relinquishment of Dogs to Shelters: Animal and Regional Predictors in British Columbia, Canada. Front Vet Sci. 2022 Apr 14;9:857634. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.857634. PMID: 35498734; PMCID: PMC9050194.

Edmonton Humane Society. (2026). Emergency Boarding. https://www.edmontonhumanesociety.com/services/emergency-boarding/

Fafard St-Germain, A-A., Li, T., and Tarasuck, V. (2025). Changes in households’ vulnerability to food insecurity in Canada before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2025012/article/00001-eng.htm

Hoshooley, S. (2025, December 5). We’ve never told a story like this one before. Paws for Hope. https://www.pawsforhope.org/weve-never-told-a-story-like-this-one-before/

Humane Canada. (2024a). Pet Inclusive Housing. https://humanecanada.ca/en/petinclusivehousing

Humane Canada (2024b). National Pet Food Bank Map. https://humanecanada.ca/en/nationalpetfoodbank

Levesque, O. (2024, January 19). With need greater than ever, organizations come together to create national pet food bankL Thunder Bay's Northern Reach Network receives grant from National Pet Food Bank. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/with-need-greater-than-ever-organizations-come-together-to-create-national-pet-food-bank-1.7088859

Ma, G. C., Ravulo, J. & McGeown, U. (2023). Emergency Animal Boarding: A Social Return on Investment. Animals: An Open Access Journal From MDPI, 13(14), 2264. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13142264

Macdonald, K. (2022) Animal Shelter Philanthropy: Funding Challenges for SPCAs and Humane Societies. PhiLab. https://philab.uqam.ca/animal-shelter-philanthropy/

Macdonald, K. (Host). (2024, May 6). Keeping Families Together: The Link Between Human and Animal Well-being with Kathy Powelson (No. 4) [Audio podcast episode]. In The Just Be Cause Podcast. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3xXz4adafWLfMJheL4rS5H?si=duOZAwoNQQeLoYBUlGo0Aw

Macdonald, K. (Host). (2025, Nov 13). Building Trust and Dignity in Animal Welfare: The Potter League’s Community Navigator approach (No. 39) [Audio podcast episode]. In The Just Be Cause Podcast. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6FVAsd8H62HmA69HnibNfP?si=YRvlLUKgSmOXTBnorOMedg

Macdonald, K. & Parascandola, A. (2025). Forgotten Victims of War: Philanthropy for Animals in Conflict Zones. PhiLab: The PhiLanthropic Year vol. 6, 63–67. https://philab.uqam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Animals-in-conflict-zones_compressed.pdf

Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities. (2024). Solving the Housing Crisis: Canada's Housing Plan. (Catalogue No. T94-62/2024E-PDF) https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/housing-logement/housing-plan-report-rapport-plan-logement-eng.html

Montgomery, J., Liang, Z., & Lloyd, J. (2024). A Scoping Review of Forced Separation Between People and Their Companion Animals. Anthrozoös, 37(2), 245–267. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2023.2287315

Montreal SPCA. (2025). Keeping Families Together. Montreal SPCA. https://www.spca.com/en/keeping-families-together/

World Health Organization. (2026). One Health. https://www.who.int/health-topics/one-health

One Welfare. (2025). About One Welfare. https://www.onewelfareworld.org/about.html

Praline’s Backyard Foundation. (2026). https://pralinesbackyardfoundation.org/

The Humane Society of Kitchener Waterloo & Stratford Perth. (2026). Emergency Boarding Program. https://kwsphumane.ca/emergency-boarding-program

Winnipeg Humane Society (2025). Pet-Inclusive Housing: survey results & recommendations. https://winnipeghumanesociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/PetInclusiveHousingReport.pdf

A conversation with Kathy Powelson on the intersectionalities between human and animal crises was published on the Just Be Cause Podcast in May 2024. Listen to the episode here: Keeping Families Together: The Link Between Human and Animal Well-Being.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/interactive-map-for-pet-food-banks-launched-across-canada/article_eef8cce8-7aa6-11ef-878a-9323ee8fd37e.html

1 This search was done on Apartments.com on January 8;th 2026. Another search was done on January 8th, 2026 on Rentals.ca with only 14 listings out of 58 listings under 2 000$ allowed pets in the Metro Vancouver area, representing 75% fewer options. No official statistics on the portion of housing that allow pets was found.