In DC, animal care services are currently outsourced to a contractor rather than provided directly by the city. Currently, that contractor is the Humane Rescue Alliance (HRA), which fired over two dozen volunteers Tuesday in an attempt to silence our concerns about their care for animals and lack of services.

HRA's contract with the District lays out the services HRA is supposed to provide and the standards they are supposed to meet. It includes management of a city-owned shelter location on New York Avenue, requirements that animals be cared for humanely, public low-cost vaccination, requirements for intake, and notes about low-cost spay/neuter. The people of DC pay HRA millions of dollars every year to provide these services for DC’s animals.

But none of this started as a dispute about contract terms. This started with a group of HRA volunteers expressing concerns to HRA staff that the spaces animals were living in were not consistently clean and that animals were going days (or in some cases weeks, for cats) without any time outside their small kennels. We also spoke up about a “warehouse” situation where HRA was housing dogs in wire travel crates some of them could not even stand up in 24/7 for weeks and months at a time (see video), a kitten euthanasia policy that was killing cats for treatable conditions, and a lack of low-cost spay/neuter since 2019.  

Although senior leadership at HRA met with volunteers on several occasions, no long-term solutions were deployed. This is why we tried to reach the HRA board. This is why we looked up the contract with the city – which very clearly told us, among other things, that HRA as contractor is required to “house and handle all animals humanely, treating them with kindness, sensitivity and respect.” This is why we tried to reach the DC City Council (see written and verbal testimony by HRA volunteers at a City Council hearing this year). The conditions we have expressed concern about continue today – more than a year after we started speaking up. And the volunteers that spoke up have now all been fired by HRA.

We need you to contact DC Health and the Council and tell them it's time for them to step up and ensure DC has animal care and control that provides proper care for animals and sufficient services for residents.