PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Chloe Rein, President of Brooklyn Kitty Committee
5:11:30
·
3 min
Chloe Rein, President of Brooklyn Kitty Committee, testified about the urgent need for affordable spay/neuter services and veterinary care in New York City. She shared her personal experience of managing a large-scale cat rescue operation in 2015, highlighting the financial burden on individual rescuers and the ongoing crisis of cat overpopulation.
- Rein spent $4000 of her own money to trap, neuter, and rehome 38 cats in a single Brooklyn block in 2015.
- She emphasized that spay/neuter and vet services remain unaffordable for many rescuers and pet owners, despite some efforts by private organizations.
- Rein called for the city to take responsibility and allocate funds to address the issue, describing animal rescuers as "essentially unpaid city workers."
Chloe Rein
5:11:30
Hi.
5:11:30
I'm Chloe Rhine.
5:11:31
I'm the president of a small rescue organization in Brooklyn called Brooklyn kitty Committee.
5:11:38
I wanted to thank you for listening to our community today.
5:11:42
It's really important that we feel like we're hurt.
5:11:47
My story is in 2015, a friend of mine asked me to trap a kitty that was living under her house in Crown Heights.
5:11:53
And upon further investigation, I found that there were 38 cats within a one block radius, which we ended up trapping, neutering, and re homing.
5:12:07
The primary source had actually come from a city run park building called Saint John's Rec Center within the District 36, and this project was not supported by the city.
5:12:21
Though I used the cheapest Spayneuter services available at the time, in 2015, the project still cost me $4000 personally to complete, which I scrambled to fundraise over months and months of pushing on social media and emailing.
5:12:37
Friends and family and people I did not know on next door and things like that.
5:12:44
The project also triggered numerous parks, employees, and neighbors in that area to ask me to help with Spain New Year for their own pets because they also could not afford these services, which I did and covered personally.
5:12:59
10 years later, Spain Newder and vet services are still unaffordable and inaccessible to many rescuers and pet parents, though private animal organizations have opened and increased these accessibility.
5:13:12
It's their version of low cost.
5:13:13
It's still unaffordable for majority of new workers that qualify for these services.
5:13:19
Thus, the problem remains and continues to grow in the form of a cat overpopulation crisis.
5:13:25
Unaffordable, spay neuter surgeries and basic vet care costs have essentially become a class issue, a low income family having to make the choice between doing the right thing for their pet versus paying their rent is unacceptable in the richest city in the world.
5:13:40
Expecting small private rescue organizations and independent rescuers to shoulder the Spain neuter of 500,000 to a 1,000,000 plus outdoor cats is incomprehensible.
5:13:52
This city this is a city problem and not an institution prob a private institution problem.
5:13:57
Animal rescuers are essentially unpaid city workers with no recognition from the city.
5:14:02
We're doing all of the sad and disgusting and tragic work because we care about our city and these cats.
5:14:10
But this is an unsustainable model and rescuers in the organization.
5:14:13
You're doing
Lynn C. Schulman
5:14:14
some some up
Chloe Rein
5:14:15
I'm almost finished.
5:14:17
Restaurants and organizations are going broke, shutting doors, hiding from their emails, and burning out.
5:14:23
The city needs to step up and take responsibility for shortcomings and allocate funds to push our efforts forward.
5:14:30
Thank you.
UNKNOWN
5:14:30
Thank you.