NYC MUST REFORM ITS HOUSING LAWS CONCERNING PET OWNERSHIP

When Bill de Blasio was campaigning to be Mayor of NYC in 2013, he made a number of promises.  Among those promises were (1) to make NYC “a more humane city;” (2) to reform the Animal Care & Control Shelters of NYC; and (3) to create more pet-friendly homes.  More than two years later, now-Mayor de Blasio has failed to fulfill a single one of these promises.

This petition focuses on item (3) above because the absence of pet-friendly homes, landlord restrictions and a public housing ban on pets is not only costing the lives of innocent homeless animals, forcing NYC citizens to make a choice between their pets and a home, giving landlords too much power over people’s lives and choices, but is also fueling NYC’s animal shelters with victims.  Every day, animal advocates count the number of animals relinquished to the Animal Care Centers of NYC by NYC residents because they’re forced to move to places where pets are rejected or because the NYCHA ban ejects them from the homes they had.  Ever-rising rents are getting people evicted from their apartments and their pets end up paying the ultimate price at The Animal Care Centers of NYC.

When landlords wield such power over people’s lives in this way, it’s not only cruel, it’s inhumane, and a plot to drive people from their homes and an obvious effort to raise rents in a city in which Mayor de Blasio also promised more affordable housing.

Homeless animals deserve the right to live in the city in which they are born.  If NYC wishes to reduce the number of homeless animals, it should do so with a spay-neuter policy and not use murder-for-expedience as a solution.

There are options to killing homeless animals.  Encouraging landlords to be more pet-friendly by pointing out that pets make their properties safer, that pets make people happier and healthier and informing them that having pets on their properties might reduce their homeowner’s insurance premiums is one way.  Another way would be to offer landlords a modest decrease in property taxes as an incentive to making their properties pet-friendly.

Finally, when NYC imposes a public housing ban on pets and forces people to either move or relinquish their pets and those pets end up in its animal shelters, this costs taxpayers money for shelter staff, shelter maintenance and shelter administrator salaries, is hardly cost-effective and doesn’t make NYC “a more humane city.”

THIS PETITION DEMANDS THAT MAYOR DE BLASIO FULFILL HIS PROMISES AS LISTED IN PARAGRAPH ONE ABOVE AND THAT AT THE VERY LEAST HE MAKE AN EFFORT TO STOP COMPANION ANIMALS FROM BEING EJECTED FROM THE HOMES THEY HAVE.  THIS PETITION ALSO DEMANDS THAT MAYOR DE BLASIO NEGOTIATE AN ALTERNATIVE TO LANDLORD RESTRICTIONS AND THAT HE REPEAL THE NYCHA BAN ON PETS WHICH WAS NOT APPROVED BY THE TAXPAYERS THAT SUBSIDIZE NYC PUBLIC HOUSING AND IS THERFORE PREJUDICIAL AND WAS ILLEGAL FROM ITS INCEPTION.

IT IS NOT A CITY’S OR LANDLORDS’ RIGHT TO DETERMINE WHO SHOULD LIVE AND WHO SHOULD DIE.  DOGS AND CATS HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE TOO.