10/05/2026
Love this ๐
๐ I have an ask for the community, and it is a big one.
This past week I was at a meeting with the City of Olympia and several partner agencies, talking about where things stand with The Jungle closure.
We talked about animals. About what Oly Camp Kitties can do to help prepare people for housing - spay/neuter, vaccinations, rehoming when it is needed - so that animals do not become a barrier to someone getting inside.
Good conversation. Real progress.
But something came up that comes up constantly. Something I get asked about on a very regular basis, and that I do not have a good answer for.
THE QUESTION
What do you do for someone who wants to go to treatment for drug or alcohol use, but needs someone to care for their pet in order to go?
Think about that for a second.
A person has decided they want help. They have made the hardest decision there is. The bed is available. And the thing stopping them is that there is nobody to take their cat for thirty days.
So they do not go.
I have watched this happen. It is a pretty frequent occurrence.
IT IS NOT JUST TREATMENT
Sometimes people need temporary care while they move between housing situations. A placement comes open but it has a two-pet limit and they have four. They are hospitalized. They are in a shelter that does not take animals while waiting for a unit. They have an opportunity, and the animal is the thing that does not fit.
In almost every one of these cases, the need is temporary. Weeks, or a couple of months. Not forever.
But without somewhere for the animal to go, temporary becomes a permanent obstacle. And too often what happens instead is that the animal gets surrendered, or abandoned, or the person simply does not take the opportunity.
I have written about this before. We need a temporary foster care program in this community.
And honestly, the need is just as real for dogs. Our lane is cats, but somebody should be thinking about dogs too.
AND HERE IS THE PART THAT SHOULD GET YOUR ATTENTION
There is money for this.
Opioid settlement funds. Substance use disorder funding. Behavioral health dollars. There are funding streams specifically aimed at removing barriers to treatment, and this is a barrier to treatment.
Honestly? There is probably more money available for this than there is for the work Oly Camp Kitties does every single day. Spay/neuter is notoriously hard to fund. Removing an obstacle between a person and a treatment bed is a much easier case to make.
So this is not a situation where we have a good idea and no path to pay for it.
I have a program proposal written and ready to go. We have a lot of ideas about how to structure this - intake, matching, foster recruitment, the referral chain, how to keep animals and owners connected during separation.
What this needs is a champion. Or better, several champions.
AND LET ME BE CRYSTAL CLEAR
I am tired of reading comments on Facebook from people who wish more of our unhoused neighbors would just go to treatment.
I hear it constantly. Why don't they get help. Why don't they go to rehab. Why won't they do the work.
Here is a real, specific, identified barrier standing directly in front of our community. Not theoretical. Not systemic in some abstract way nobody can touch.
A person wants to go to treatment and has nowhere to put their cat.
That is solvable. That is a foster network and a coordinator and a small budget.
So - who is willing to help remove it?
WHAT IT WOULD TAKE
Oly Camp Kitties started with one cat in an encampment on Wheeler Street. One person saw a need, the need grew, and eventually we built a nonprofit around it because the structure was necessary to serve it sustainably.
The same thing could happen here. There is nothing magic about how we did what we did with OCK.
We have years of experience we can lend. We know how to recruit volunteers, build clinic partnerships, navigate transport, work with this client population, and run something on almost no money. We would gladly bring all of that to the table.
But I want to be straightforward: we are not willing to be the only ones at the table, and we are not willing to take this on by ourselves.
That is not reluctance. It is experience. We ran a foster and adoption program for three years and closed it deliberately, because it was expensive, time-intensive, and pulling us away from the one thing nobody else was doing. We are careful about what we take on, because an organization that burns out helps nobody.
Here is what this needs:
๐น CHAMPIONS. People willing to drive it. Build the structure, chase the funding, hold the thing together.
๐น FOSTERS. Households willing to take an animal for a defined period - thirty days, sixty days - knowing the animal goes home at the end.
๐น PARTNERS. Treatment providers, shelters, housing programs, and animal welfare organizations willing to be part of the referral chain.
WHAT DO YOU THINK, COMMUNITY?
Would you help build this? Would you foster for it? Do you know an organization already thinking about this that we should be talking to? Do you know your way around opioid settlement funding?
I do not want to let another person tell me they cannot go to treatment because of their cat. Not when the fix is this concrete and the money is this available.
The proposal is written. I am looking for the people. ๐พ
- Whitney, Oly Camp Kitties
