Barriers to finding and maintaining pet-inclusive affordable housing: Tenant experiences in Houston, Texas.

The city of Houston, Texas has a growing deficit of available and affordable rental units for low-income residents. Due to pet policies, the shortage of affordable housing potentially puts renters who own pets at greater risk of housing insecurity. In this qualitative study, we use a community-engaged approach to document the lived experiences of finding and maintaining affordable housing among 24 current, former, and aspiring pet owners.

Housing-related companion animal relinquishment across 21 animal shelters in the United States from 2019-2023.

Housing issues are a major contributor to companion animal relinquishment in the United States and beyond. In this study, we analyze a database of shelter intake records from 2019-2023 from 21 shelters across the United States to assess rates and subtypes of housing relinquishment, characteristics and outcomes of the relinquished animals, and longitudinal trends in housing relinquishment. Housing issues represented 14% ( = 28,424) of overall intakes in the broader database ( = 1,021,204 total intake records).

Pet-Friendly for Whom? An Analysis of Pet Fees in Texas Rental Housing.

Previous studies have underscored the difficulty low-income pet owners often face when attempting to secure affordable rental housing. Further exacerbating this housing disparity are fees charged on top of normal monthly rent to pet owners in "pet-friendly" rental housing. In this study, we aggregated rental housing listings from the twenty most populous cities in Texas, USA from a popular online rental database.