Animal Shelter Opens Its Doors To The Homeless San Francisco Facility Offers To House The Needy In ‘Dog Apartments’

In a twist in dealing with homelessness, an animal shelter is volunteering to provide overnight lodging for homeless adults alongside the dogs.

The city’s chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which recently opened a $7 million shelter, is seeking to work with an agency to offer adults nightly shelter in “dog apartments.”

“It would give our dogs a chance to know what it would be like to have an overnight roommate,” said the president of the San Francisco SPCA, Richard Avanzino. “For the homeless people it’s an offer to get them off the street and give them shelter with a dog buddy who will be their best friend overnight.”

The organization has proposed the plan to six agencies in the city.

The SPCA shelter, the privately financed Maddie’s Pet Adoption Center, opened last month and is not the standard animal shelter. It has “home-style” quarters for dogs and cats, with television sets, Persian rugs, skylights, couches and tables. The shelter also provides obedience and toilet training.

“What is missing from the equation,” Avanzino said, “is having an overnight roommate. That’s where the idea comes in.”

Any agency that works with the shelter would have to provide cots. Because the shelter was not designed for humans, the accommodations will strictly be for overnight stays. The homeless people will not bathe, eat or receive clothes there. Homeless people with their own pets would also not be allowed to stay the night.

Terry Hill, the homeless coordinator for Mayor Willie Brown, said he had not seen the proposal and could not comment on it. “I don’t understand the concept,” Hill said. “So I have to speak with them first and talk to the mayor before I can take a position.”

The Rev. Cecil Williams of the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, which has 41 programs for the homeless, said the idea had merit. “The rooms look very livable, and probably they’re better than most rooms for homeless folks,” he said. “Dogs and animals tend to get more love and care than humans, especially those that are on the fringes of society like the homeless.”

An estimated 15,000 people live on the streets, in cars or in shelters here. When he took office in 1996, Brown said homelessness would be a top priority. A year later he said the problem “may not be solvable.”

Brown and other officials have offered proposals that include the mildly odd and the ridiculous. In the fall, Brown began a crackdown on homeless camps in Golden Gate Park and suggested borrowing a helicopter from Oakland that was equipped with heat-sensing equipment to detect campsites at night.

Next, a member of the Board of Supervisors encouraged chopping limbs off trees where the homeless had taken refuge. In a shift, the supervisor later recommended that supermarkets donate old shopping carts to the homeless.

Advocates for the homeless see the SPCA plan as another strange idea. But at least, they said, it is not intended to hurt the homeless.

The director of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, Paul Boden, said the animal shelter was nicer than a shelter for the homeless that the city recently opened in a building in China Basin. In that shelter, 600 people share space with roving raccoons and other nocturnal creatures. Some homeless people, Boden said, are quite likely to take advantage of the SPCA offer.

“It’s condescending, it’s weird and it’s a little creepy,” Boden said. “But there’s nothing punitive about them saying, ‘Well, if people want to come here and stay with the animals, they can. The more you think about it, the more bizarre it becomes, because of the statement it makes that the nicest shelter in town is going to be the one for the animals.”