Perry Hilltop resident Regina Deloria doesn’t have to look far for proof that the city has a problem with feral cats.
“I don't even have to go anywhere,” Deloria said. “Just on my own porch, I've caught 30-some-odd cats. … It’s just wild.”
Deloria spends much of her time trapping feral cats — those that live outdoors and can’t be kept as pets. She takes them to the vet to be spayed and neutered, and releases them back into the community, a practice known as “trap, neuter, release” or TNR. She volunteers at Kitty Queen Cat Rescue, a local independent cat shelter, and fosters cats until someone else adopts them.
Cat rescuers and animal advocates like Deloria often spend their own money to care for cats — and it’s not cheap. Simply spaying and neutering a cat can cost anywhere between $70 and $300, depending on the vet.
“It's tens of thousands of dollars to get all these cats fixed,” Deloria said of Pittsburgh’s outdoor cat population. “It's just impossible. We're trying to help curb the problem, but we need assistance as well.”
Pittsburgh’s city government once offered that help: Under a 2012 program it offered vouchers – up to five per resident – to cover the cost of spaying and neutering at local shelters. But that initiative was suspended earlier this year, after the city’s Bureau of Animal Care and Control said it found “individuals using the city addresses of friends and family members to bring in animals from outside city limits to take advantage of the service.”
A pared-back version of the program was restarted this past spring. The city now offers the vouchers not to pet owners, but only to spay and neuter cats that are feral.
Rescuers like Deloria say the city’s help is needed now more than ever. There is no reliable census of the cat population, but local rescuers say that outdoor cat populations have jumped since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s partly because spaying and neutering efforts were slowed at the outset of the crisis, and partly because of a trend that emerged as the crisis eased: Some of the people who adopted pets for companionship during quarantine abandoned them when it was time to return to the office.
Nowadays, when rescuers find a cat outside, it’s increasingly what they refer to a “friendly” cat that was abandoned and can be adopted. But the rescuers also trap, neuter, and release feral cats, which are not tame, and can be returned to where they were found.
Rescuers want the vouchers to be more accessible to pet owners and rescuers alike, including those who rescue cats within the city but live outside of it themselves.
According to Emily Bourne, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety, legislation for a new version of the program is expected to be introduced within weeks. The city hopes to launch the new version of it by January 1, and Bourne said some of the rescuers’ proposals are under consideration. The Department is exploring the option of eliminating the five cat household limit, and allowing registered trappers to apply for more vouchers. But the details of the program haven’t been revealed, and Deloria says half-measures won’t do the job.
“Honestly, the whole thing needs a huge overhaul. Every aspect of it, there’s issues with,” Deloria said.
A 'really big explosion'
Deloria, as a city resident, can get access to vouchers for five cats. But others involved in the Kitty Queen rescue aren’t so lucky. The center — which offers a cat lounge for potential adopters to play with rescued cats — is based in a Ross Township strip mall just outside the city, and its founder, Christa Amari lives in Robinson
Each year, Kitty Queen gets between 100 and 150 cats fixed – 55% percent of which are found in Pittsburgh. But even though the cats themselves are from Pittsburgh, the rescuers can’t always benefit from the city’s spay and neuter program.
“Accessing the funding can be difficult for individuals who live in the city, and certainly difficult for those rescuers who are coming into our city,” said Carol Whaley, an animal advocate based in Lawrenceville.
When out-of-city rescuers capture and fix cats in Pittsburgh neighborhoods, they often ask residents if they can apply for a voucher on the trapper’s behalf. City residents too sometimes use this method when they have used up their five allotted vouchers.
But the process can be complicated: In order to receive a voucher, an applicant must provide identification and utility bills or other evidence of current residence. And neighbors aren’t always helpful.
“You can have neighbors that dislike each other and don't want to communicate about the cats,” Whaley said. Some residents “don't even want the rescuers in the neighborhood spaying and neutering the cats, and will try to chase people away.”
Amari said any pause in spaying and neutering can lead to a “really big explosion” in the number of cats, who can begin having kittens when they are as young as four or five months old.
Meanwhile, because the spay and neuter program was shut down for a time this year and only partially restored, the city is on track to spay and neuter around half the number of cats it did in 2023.
Cat advocates are hoping the city will expand availability for the spay and neuter program, especially for rescuers and trappers. But they also want to see the program made more accessible and publicized for individual pet owners, along with more outreach about the importance of spaying and neutering pets, and even help with transportation to locations where pets can be fixed.
“We're missing a huge chunk of the pet-owning population in the city because we are not advertising,” Whaley said. “The program, truly, the way it's set up is excluding a large portion of our pet owners here in the city. They love their pets as much as those of us who can find and access veterinary care and afford it. They just don't have the same resources that we do. And I think we need to do better by our pet-owning public.”
'It’s going to come down to mental health'
It’s hard to walk more than a few steps in Lydia Swanson’s Swissvale home without tripping over a cat-related item — or a cat itself. Visitors have to take care not to step on cat toys, cat decorations, Swanson’s own four pet cats or the rotating cast of foster cats currently sharing the house.
Elsewhere in the home, a shelf is dedicated to memorial paw prints and boxes of cremated remains from injured or sickly cats who died.
“That is the most depressing thing you could ever look at. … All of those up there are cats that in some way I helped with that didn't make it,” Swanson said, gesturing to the memorial shelf. “And that’s just me, like, every single [rescuer] is experiencing the same thing. To watch so much pain and suffering happen all the time takes such an emotional toll on a person.”
And Swanson said there is a financial burden as well.
Swanson, who uses they/them pronouns, founded Oakland TNR Coalition when they were in college at Pitt. Initially focused on the Oakland area, the organization now traps, fixes and releases feral cats and rescues stray cats from all around the city. Last year, the organization spent between $40,000 and $50,000 on vet bills alone.
If the spay and neuter program isn’t expanded, Swanson fears that more and more cat rescuers will become exhausted by the rising tide of cats in need.
“It’s going to come down to the mental health of the people doing this work,” they said. “I really think that's what it's going to boil down to, is people getting completely burnt out and just not being able to mentally do it anymore, and then the problem just going to get even worse, because all the people doing the work aren't going to be able to do it, and then there's no one else other than us.”
Swanson now lives in Swissvale, but knows firsthand that even city residents haven’t always been able to get the vouchers that could help with some of those expenses, because of the rigorous application process.
“Even when I did live in the city, my physical address on my driver's license was my parents’ address,” they said. “A friend of mine that has lived here for eight years, her permanent address is still her parents’ address because she moves around. It's definitely frustrating.”
'This isn't sustainable'
City Councilor Anthony Coghill of District 4 is familiar with the cat conundrum. He says that while the situation has improved over time, outdoor cats were a “major problem” in his southern city district two or three years ago, to the point that constituents complained of being “overrun” with cats.
He’s looking forward to getting the program up and running again, but he also hopes the Department of Public Safety will consider creating a position specifically to address animal issues.
Given concerns about non-residents using the program at the city’s expense, “I think at the time, it was the right decision to put a pause on it,” he said. Still, “I think cutting it proved to be not the right move and that's why we reinstated it. We just need to regulate it better and have better eyes on it.”
Previously, many of the city’s animal cases were handled by Pittsburgh police officer Christine Luffey. She’s currently taking personal leave, but spoke at a recent City Council public comment with the group of rescuers. She agreed that the voucher program should be expanded, and said the city should devote more of its own staff to the problem.
“I am heartbroken that animals under this administration are not getting what they need,” she said. “They're getting below the bare minimum.”
Stray cats are also an issue in the eastern part of the city as well, District 5 Councilor Barb Warwick said. She said the city should do more to help individuals and organizations undertaking trap, neuter, and release operations in her area.
“Those folks who are out in the community, much [of the] time at their own expense, who are taking care of our stray cat population, it is important that we open up that program and give them the resources that they need to provide that community service,” she said.
“That said, we also want to make sure that we're being responsible with City of Pittsburgh taxpayer dollars, and that we are figuring out a pretty strong way to ensure that the program is not being abused by folks from outside of the city.”
Cat rescuers say they will do the best they can in the meantime.
“This isn't sustainable. And we are not alone in how we feel,” Swanson said. And if the city can resume helping rescuers, “It's only going to be beneficial to everyone — the people and the cats.”
