It was pouring the day the marshal arrived in October, flashing a court order evicting Nathan Burns and his daughter, Shoshana, from their two-bedroom co-op in Queens.
Burns described the two of them walking away from the place they had called home for the past decade, drenched and carrying their two cats in crates.
They arrived at The Humane Society of New York, on Manhattan’s East Side, where they had adopted their cats, Trudy and Cassie, seven years earlier. Now, they were handing the cats back.
Via subway, they left Manhattan bound for their new home in Queens — an adult homeless shelter where pets are not allowed.
The Burnses are part of a phenomenon born out of the recession: displaced people forced to give up their pets because they are moving to places that won’t accept animals.
Although they don’t track the reasons given, animal shelter workers throughout New York say they have witnessed a sharp increase in recession-related relinquishments over the past year.
Directors at the largest no-kill shelters say they are at capacity with long waiting lists, while people are making public pleas on websites such as Craig’s List, looking for someone to care for their pet until they find a home for themselves and their dog or cat.
Other animal rescuers say they have seen a marked difference in the frequency of pets brought in by owners who can no longer accommodate them.
“I’m overwhelmed,” said Emelinda Narvaez, the founder of Earth Angels, a non-profit canine rescue and adoption organization based in the Bronx. “‘I have to leave my apartment,’ they tell me. ‘I have to leave my house; I can’t keep my dog.’ This is what I’m dealing with all the time.”
Across the country, 1.5 million pets are at risk of being relinquished, 20 percent more than before the recession, according to a study of pending foreclosures data by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Some pet owners who are suddenly evicted leave their animals behind, along with their furniture.
“The other day we rescued a dog that was left behind when the owners were evicted,” said Renee Collins, adoption center manager at Bideawee, a shelter in Manhattan. “The dog was probably in the apartment for a few days so when I left it in my office for just a minute, it started eating the dirt in my plant.”
Sandra DeFeo, co-executive director of The Humane Society of New York, said that she noticed a dramatic rise in pet relinquishments starting in December 2008, in the months following financial crisis in the banking sector. She rattled off names of animals whose owners recently relinquished them.
There was Phoo-Bee, a Wheaton Terrier, who wore a collar that his owner hand-stitched. “The owner loved that dog,” DeFeo said. “She cooked for him every day.” DeFeo said the owner lost her job as she was separating from her husband, so she moved in with her sister, into an apartment building that doesn’t accept dogs.
And there was Dillon, the Boxer. His owner, a musician, moved because she was earning less.
Pet adovacy groups say the problem goes beyond New York City. On Long Island, Kathleen Blackshaw and her three school-age children wound up living in a friend’s spare room, but her their dog, Jazzy, had to stay outside.
“It breaks my heart every night to make her sleep in the car,” Blackshaw said. “But right now, I don’t have any choice. I can only hope that I find a home for her because none of the shelters can take her. They say they are inundated.”
Nathan Burns and his daughter now live at the El Camino Inn, a homeless shelter in Jamaica, Queens. There, they share a room and get three meals a day. He described his room as bare, with two beds, one for him and the other for his daughter.
Burns said he managed several Italian restaurants in Manhattan until 1998, when his wife and son died in a car collision on the Triborough Bridge caused by an unlicensed livery driver. Burns then quit his job and became a stay-at-home dad so he could always be available to take Shoshana to swimming practice or be there if she injured herself while ice skating. They lived off of interest payments from settlement money he received.
In 2008, he said, he lost about $120,000 when the stock market plummeted because he had shares in now-defunct banks. He could no longer pay the maintenance on their co-op.
Now, his daughter pays for their sole luxury: their mobile phones. The 20-year-old works as a Water Safety Instructor and a lifeguard at nearby Queens College, where she makes between $200 and $280 a week, her father said.
On a recent day, Burns flipped open his Samsung mobile phone and stared at photos of Trudy and Cassie.
“I miss standing over Cassie to make her eat,” Burns said of the cat they affectionately called anorexic. He remembers waking up to two balls of fur sleeping by his pillow. The playful one, Trudy, sometimes climbed on top of his chest.
Burns hopes that some day he’ll be able to get his cats back from the shelter, if they haven’t been adopted by someone else. Would he ever want another cat, other than Trudy or Jessie? Burns said no: “You become too attached. I wouldn’t want to lose a cat again.”