D.C.’s Humane Rescue Alliance’s mass firing of volunteers is retaliation, they claim, and hurts the shelter animals

At rescues and most shelters, public and private, across the country, volunteers are the lifeblood that pumps the shelters with energy and free work hours enabling those entities to save dogs. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. In too many cases, when volunteers blow the whistle on shelter practices they see and believe are detrimental—and perhaps even cruel—to the animals the shelter is supposed to be caring for, the volunteers are fired. And this is what volunteers at Washington, DC’s Humane Rescue Alliance claim happened to them.

It’s kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face. And when the shelter ridding itself of longtime volunteers desperately needs more volunteers and employees, not fewer, it makes no sense. One might be inclined to agree with what the volunteers themselves are claiming, that the firing of over two dozen longtime volunteers was done in retaliation for their publicly airing the problems and concerns they have regarding the management at the Humane Rescue Alliance.

But in Washington, D.C., the shelter that has the contract to deal with the district’s stray dog and cat population did just that—they fired over two dozen volunteers. After an independent inspection performed by DC Health Animal Services, on a report dated 8/24/2023, it was found that “there is a very large number of animals being housed and cared for (several hundred). At the Oglethorpe location a number of make shift/temporary kennels have been established in the warehouse space.” And “The biggest concern was the number of animals housed in crates that require walking and enrichment. Though employees/volunteers were present to walk the dogs, it was evident that more people are needed to successfully achieve the goal of walking the total number of dogs multiple times a day.” The inspection notes that while there are ten outside dog yard play spaces, “we witness only two being utilized.” In addition, it was noted that “The facilities are in need of a “deep cleaning” and “the facilities are in need of organization with respect to space and storage.”

The most immediate concerns noted in the report seem to be the total number of animals, the space allocated for the animals, and the enrichment efforts and employee/volunteer numbers. The report states, “It is evident to me that HRA is “busting at the seams” with animals they have in their care. It does not appear that they have a sufficient number of staff/volunteer members to manage all the needs of the shelter.”

In spite of knowing that the health department believed that HRA didn’t have sufficient numbers of employees and volunteers to manage the animals in their possession, on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, HRA fired more than two dozen volunteers. Some of the volunteers had been donating their time for over a decade, many taking care of animals while fostering them in their homes.

As reported by television station WUSA9, the volunteers claim that “they were fired Tuesday after they had been outspoken about allegedly poor conditions in the kennels. Christy Lambert tells WUSA9 she spends her weekends volunteering at HRA’s shelter on New York Avenue. She has been doing that since August 2023. Lambert said for months now, she and others have voiced their concerns about the conditions of the animals staying in the New York Avenue shelter. “The kennel had lots of feces, pee, blood even, on the walls,” she said. Lambert and other volunteers documented what they saw in video and pictures. They gave them to the management. By last fall, Lambert said that when nothing had been done, the group wrote a letter.” Lambert explained that it went to board members of HRA, city council members and the mayor.

According to the volunteers, in 2019, things at the shelter changed for the worse. People who understand canine behavior know that when frightened, dogs growl or stare or put their ears back. They are scared in the shelter environment, but with enrichment and attention from volunteers, those dogs can become more comfortable and be adopted. However when shelters get crowded, and people who aren’t behavior experts look at dogs, good dogs die.

And it’s not just the dogs who suffer. The former volunteers report that for injured or ill stray cats, the shelter is only offering euthanasia, and they seem to be turning away all stray cats over the age of three months. That bears repeating: It’s being reported that the shelter is refusing to take in cats and kittens over the age of three months. According to Alissa Sillars, a former volunteer, “the cat was malnourished and pregnant when a neighbor in Northeast D.C. tried to get her into HRA’s care. She says they were initially turned away and told the cat would be euthanized if she were left there.” Others say that cats are not accepted at the shelter and callers are told to leave the cats or kittens in the street.

NBCWashington.com also reported on the volunteers’ claims. They shared that, “A woman who says she’s a former HRA (volunteer) sent News4 video that she says was shot inside the organization’s New York Avenue shelter in September and is an example of dogs living in kennels with their waste. Another video, which the same woman says was shot in October at the same location, shows another animal living in similar conditions.”

In October, the volunteers shared a letter with the HRA board regarding their concerns and recommendations. More recently, they submitted testimony to the DC Council, which is the District of Columbia government, including their concerns and recommendations. Their concerns are briefly summarized here:

Inhumane living conditions: they state that there has been a “sharp decrease” in walking dogs, behavioral assessments, and remedial training. The living conditions are inhumane, leading to physical and mental deterioration. They cite the warehousing of dogs in one location where they live in crates in a windowless warehouse, often for weeks at a time. These dogs, according to the volunteers, do not have consistent access to water and are only let out of their cages twice a day, sometimes for only five to ten minutes, in direct conflict with HRA’s publicized guidance that it isn’t humane to keep a dog crated for more than four hours at a time. They wrote that dogs at the New York Avenue location go days without leaving their kennels and without human interaction and socialization. Because the location is understaffed, the dogs live in the kennels, often in their own waste.
Euthanasia: The volunteers share that while HRA states that they don’t euthanize for space, its new policies have resulted in “inconsistent and increasing use of euthanasia. Dogs have been euthanized for many different reasons including…merely displaying fearful behavior such as staring, barking while in kennel, pulling on the leash, etc, without a bite incident.” They go on to note the euthanasia rate for kittens “aged 4 months and under in 2023 has nearly doubled from any of the previous five years. Kittens are now routinely euthanized for easily treatable medical conditions without any attempt of providing medical treatment or other methods of intervention such as foster or rescue placement.”
Oversight of funds: According to volunteers, in 2015, HRA received a grant for five million dollars ($5,000,000) from from the District of Columbia to purchase land for a new shelter. HRA did purchase a lot in Southeast DC next to the 11th Street bridge. The lot remains unused except for shipping containers and trash which litter the site. Meanwhile, HRA has accumulated $2.7 million in overdue taxes on this property. In spite of years of fundraising, ostensibly for the new shelter, it was never built, and there has been no accounting of those funds. It appears the property is up for a tax sale this year.
Transparency regarding euthanasia and live release rate (LRR): The HRA does not publish their monthly statistics in a transparent manner. The letter details how such information should be organized and what should be included. Former volunteers believe that the live release rate numbers for the shelter are combined with those from another shelter managed by HRA. Some claim that when owners surrender their pets, HRA is pressuring them to elect euthanasia, known as “Owner Requested Euthanasia,” which does not count against HRA’s live release rates. (This is something that other large public shelters do in other cities, and it’s misleading and horrible for the dogs who are then euthanized with no chance of being adopted.) They also claim that HRA does not publish their live release rate (LRR) even though that is a requirement of their contract with DC.
Salaries: The volunteers note that there is a HUGE disparity in the salary of the CEO, whose salary with benefits was $367,000 in 2022 (the latest tax year available) and who benefits from a very generous matching pension plan, and the salaries paid to the shelter staff. This results in high turnover and understaffing. Behavior, animal care, and medical positions are routinely understaffed for as long as six months. They write that in addition to the emotional stress, the staff lack proper equipment, support and training. “They are expected to complete the same number of tasks whether their shirt is fully staffed, half-staffed, or they are the only ones there that day.” Reducing the inequalities of pay and providing a living wage to those actually cleaning cages and caring for the dogs and cats could help keep those positions staffed. “Successfulnonprofits.com recommends an executive to staff salary ration of four or five to one. At HRA, the ratio of the Executive Director’s salary to that of staff is roughly 11:1.”
Low-cost spay and neuter services for the public: The volunteers share that “HRA discontinued its low-cost spay-neuter services in August 2019, well before the COVID pandemic. It is unacceptable that the largest animal welfare organization in our nation’s capital has not offered widely-available low-cost spay-neuter services to the public for more than four years.” They note that volunteers have reported an “alarming increase of intact community cats and HRA has rejected requests for spay-neuter procedures on these cats. HRA is thus failing to uphold its commitment to provide these services. Failure to provide these services is also a violation of its contract with the DC government for animal control services.“
Foster program: The best shelters have robust foster programs where dogs and cats, including those with behavioral needs or young puppies whose health might be compromised in a shelter environment, can be safe with families. HRA needs such a program to ensure that they are doing the best for the animals in their care, because while they do have a foster program, they need a robust behavioral program to help animals adjust to living in new circumstances. Volunteers say that HRA’s behavioral department is understaffed, thus leading to animals deteriorating from stress at the shelter.
Community Cats/TNR: There are state and county ordinances across the country regarding community cats and the TNR process. TNR means Trap, Neuter (sterilize), Return. This is a method of humanely controlling the feral cat population. Left intact, female cats can begin having litters as young as four months, up to three times a year. So a neighborhood with just a few feral cats can quickly become inundated with them. By trapping the cats, sterilizing them, and returning them to the care of a community caretaker who feeds them, the cats will no longer be able to reproduce. And because they are vaccinated, they are less likely to spread disease. (In many states, people who care for these cats are registered with the entity that helped with the TNR process.) It does not appear that HRA is actively supporting the TNR of feral and stray cats, and in light of the fact that they appear to refuse to take in any cats and kittens over the age of three months, even adoptable cats, this is something that a publicly funded shelter should be doing.

When HRA fired volunteers who were fostering the shelter’s dogs and cats, they told the fosters that they could either adopt their foster animals or bring them back to the shelter. However, the dogs and cats were being fostered because the shelter was not a safe place for these animals. Fosters care for their animals. The former volunteers were able to find rescues to take the dogs and cats that HRA didn’t appear to care about. All impacted animals, according to the fired volunteer group, are still with their foster families because other rescues stepped up, even though all rescues and shelters are beyond crowded right now. And the good news is that all of the cats and one of the dogs was adopted. Three dogs are still available for adoption through Laila’s Legacy Rescue.

Many, many volunteers have spoken out on social media, including reddit, to share their pain and their sorrow at being unable to help the animals they advocated for so fiercely. Without these volunteers, who will speak for the dogs and cats who are voiceless?

Some social media posts about this situation regarding the cats. Check out @vols4hrareform and @indigodogclub on Instagram for more information.