Politics 10 hours ago Republicans Want to Ban Pets From Domestic Violence Shelters
A new Trump-backed attack on domestic violence services just dropped—and this time, it’s targeting survivors’ pets.
Tucked inside the 1,200-page appendix to the White House’s budget request to Congress is a proposal to eliminate a grant program, funded by the Agriculture Department and administered by the Department of Justice, that provides domestic violence shelters with money to support survivors’ pets. Advocates say the program, known as PAWS, helps fill a critical gap despite its relatively small budget of $3 million: Many domestic violence shelters do not allow people to bring their pets with them, which can prevent survivors from leaving their abusers or lead them to return to them, according to a survey conducted by the Urban Resource Institute (URI) and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
“Survivors won’t leave, they can’t leave, if they’re going to leave their pets behind,” said Lauren Schuster, vice president of government affairs at URI, a New York City-based domestic violence service provider that lobbied for the creation of PAWS and received one of the program’s first grants. “Pets are often the only source of unconditional love that a survivor experiences when they’re in abusive relationships. So many leave [abusers] with little more than the clothes on their backs, their children and their pets, and to have them be forced to make a decision [to leave their pets] is too much for them to bear.”
The PAWS funds were first distributed in 2020, after being authorized as part of the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. Since then, more than 44 PAWS grants have been distributed to organizations across 26 states, according to Schuster and Nancy Blaney, director of government affairs at the Animal Welfare Institute, an organization that also lobbied for the creation of the program. URI received a $600,000 grant during the first year of PAWS’ distribution, which funded food, supplies, and veterinary care, Schuster said. Now, all 24 of their New York City shelters are pet inclusive, thanks to private funding and some other government grants the organization has secured, she added.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/domestic-violence-pets-shelters-abuse/
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