From Albany Down, New York Is Failing Homeless Cats and Dogs at Every Level of Government
Companion animals have long paid the price for Albany’s disinterest in their well-being – and continue to, as attested by recent headlines from around the state.
The Scoop New York is a newsletter dedicated to companion animals and the New Yorkers who care for them, from Buffalo to Brooklyn. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were nonetheless exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.

As a rule, the governor and New York state lawmakers delegate responsibility for homeless cats and dogs to localities – cities, towns and counties. This means that, aside from a few million dollars split among shelters each year for construction projects – a pool of money distributed by the governor from the state’s $229 billion budget – Albany largely takes a hands-off approach to animal welfare.
Companion animals have long paid the price for Albany’s disinterest in their well-being – and continue to, as attested by recent headlines from around the state.
Rochester and Syracuse
The Democrat and Chronicle reports that, while advocates in Rochester are happy with the state Senate’s recent passage of a suite of animal-centric bills, including a ban on “devocalization” surgery and tougher sentencing guidelines for multiple cruelty convictions, they say such legislation should have cleared the governor’s desk long ago.
“I think it was a start, but we need vast improvements – nowhere near what needs to be done here in the city of Rochester,” Steven Drave told the Democrat and Chronicle. Drave is a roofer who, along with his girlfriend, reportedly helps care for 175 cats a year, in addition to five dogs.
A town that lays such a heavy burden on private citizens is not likely to have a healthy shelter system. Sure enough, Rochester recently announced a moratorium on intakes at the city’s Verona Street shelter. Until late April, people with cats and dogs to surrender will be turned away.
Oddly, the Democrat and Chronicle piece leans toward placing the onus on residents, rather than city government, to remedy the shelter’s problems. The paper also reports that the city has known for at least 11 years that its current facility, built in 1940, needs work that has yet to be completed.
The situation in Rochester is bad enough that a citizen protest is scheduled before the City Council meeting on Thursday, April 18. The protest is led by Voices of Verona Street, a group dedicated to improving shelter conditions.
“For more than ten years the city has promised a new shelter,” reads an announcement on the Voices of Verona Street Facebook page. Despite multiple calls for “sweeping changes,” the city of Rochester is “lots of talk and no action,” the group says. When new shelter standards take effect statewide in 2025, the group says Rochester will be further behind.
In the meantime, the Democrat and Chronicle says Rochester is killing cats and dogs due to a purported lack of shelter space.
To the east, conditions are so dire in Syracuse that people are dropping unwanted dogs at a grooming business, in the apparent hope that the dogs will be cared for.
Rockland County
In a multi-part series, Rockland News reports that the 50-year history of the former Hi-Tor Animal Shelter (now operating as RG C.A.R.E.S.) in Pomona, about 30 miles north and west of New York City, is one of near-constant turmoil, marked by “grotesque mismanagement,” neglect and preventable animal deaths.
Though Rockland County residents have repeatedly indicated support for a county-wide shelter, local officials have failed to provide a secure environment for homeless dogs and cats. Currently in the middle of another management shake-up, the future of the shelter, and the animals in its care, remains in doubt, with one anonymous official blithely telling Rockland News, “time will tell.”

New York City
It is doubtful that any New York animal control apparatus has facilitated more needless suffering and death than New York City’s. Animal Care Centers of NYC, as the system is currently branded, routinely puts healthy cats and dogs to death. Though it bills itself as “no kill,” when the system faces a crisis – which is often – its go-to response is more killing. Healthy, adoptable animals are not spared.
Over the past year, NYC ACC has repeatedly shut its doors to both dogs and cats due to reported overcrowding – despite having a lower intake rate per capita than other open-intake cities and, of course, the largest pool of potential foster and adoptive households in the United States.
Contrary to its mandate, NYC ACC is neither open intake nor no kill. Since the mayor appoints ACC board members, this failure is a choice, made over and over again, by every New York City mayor since ACC’s founding in 1995.
As one former ACC executive told City Limits during the shelter crisis of 2012: “New Yorkers would be shocked if they understood how deliberately underfunded the ACC is.”