THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH CONTINUES TO STIFF THE BRONX AND QUEENS

 BRONX AND QUEENS RESIDENTS

DENIED BASIC ANIMAL SERVICES

In 2000 the NY City Council passed a law requiring the Department of Health to create full service animal shelters for the Bronx and Queens (the “Shelters Law”).  For the next 11 years the DOH dawdled … claiming they were committed to finding the right sites for those shelters … and that they were looking high and low for just the site, but it was just so hard.

In 2011 … along came Local Law 59 which relieved the DOH of its shelter-creating legal obligation.  The DOH assured the Council and the public that Bronx and Queens would receive special attention, amply making up for those missing shelters.

One type of special attention was for the DOH to replace the tiny Queens “Pet Receiving [i.e., dumping] Center” with a former vet hospital in Jamaica, Queens.  That promise was made in September 2011.

Nineteen months later Deputy Health Commissioner Daniel Kass told the Council’s Health Committee that the replacement Queens center deal “didn’t work out.”  But he said the DOH was committed to finding a replacement center and would keep looking.  (Which — remember — is precisely what the DOH said … for 11 years .. about the mandated shelters for the Bronx and Queens.)

The Queens Receiving Center

So, as always, Queens and the Bronx are stuck with receiving centers but no shelters.  The Queens site is the most squalid of the 2 centers.   It’s a tiny affair, located below street level, literally in the shadow of the Long Island Expressway as it crosses over Queens Boulevard.  The noise from overhead is deafening.

Queens "Pet Receiving Center," Exterior View

To surrender an animal, you and your pet must make your way down an outdoor staircase.  On opening the door to the center, you find yourself smack in the middle of a tiny waiting room.

Queens "Pet Receiving Center," Lobby

For a borough with 2 million residents and an estimated 870,000 pet dogs and cats, this one postage stamp center is all the DOH thinks Queens deserves.

We encourage Queens residents to visit their borough’s “Pet Receiving Center” and see firshand what the DOH thinks is good enough for that community.

If you’re not happy with what you see, contact your City Council members.  Tell them you’re tired of Queens getting the short end of the stick.  (Queens councilmember Peter Vallone, Jr. is well aware of the problem, having long complained about the lack of a shelter and the shabby substitute of a receiving center.)

Every mayoral candidate who attended[i] NYClass’s May 6th forum on Animal Protection Issues agreed that the Bronx and Queens deserve their own shelters.  Tell your Council Members that  you’re tired of the DOH’s broken promises.

What The Bronx Endures

Bronx community board member, animal advocate, and TNR rescuer Ferrara Testimony eloquently described how Local Law 59 has done nothing to improve services for Bronx residents and their pets.

Bronx "Pet Receiving Center" (photograph by John Sibley)

In her testimony, Ms. Ferrara observed:

Here I am again, one year and seven months since Local Law 59 was passed and I can attest that not much has changed or improved. The problems of abandoned animals; dumped animals; the public not having any knowledge of what to do or who to call, when animal problems occur has not changed. So where has the Bronx benefited from Local Law 59?

Even though the Bronx receiving center is larger than the one in Queens and is at street level on a main thoroughfare, it’s still a far cry from the services an animal shelter would offer

Sure, you can dump an animal there — now 5 days a week and 8 hours a day — but you can’t adopt one.

If your animal is lost, forget about the center helping you.  There’s no telephone number listed for either the Queens or Bronx center so you can’t call to inquire if, by chance, someone dropped off your stray pet at the center.

If you find an injured animal, the center doesn’t offer medical care.

For a borough with 1.2 million residents and an estimated 510,000 dogs and cats, Bronx is nevertheless low on the totem pole of services the DOH provides for pet owners and their pets.

We encourage Bronx residents to visit their “Pet Receiving Center.”  If you’re not satisfied with what you see … then contact your City Council representatives and tell them what you think.