More people are surrendering their pets due to cost-of-living issues

A growing number of pet owners are surrendering their pets to SPCA Tampa Bay because they can’t afford to take care of them.

The nonprofit animal shelter, which is a private and funded by donations, is based in Largo but serves the greater Tampa Bay region.

Emily Bernhart, the shelter’s mission programs manager, said there’s dozens of reasons that people surrender their pets. She emphasized that it doesn’t make someone a bad pet owner for surrendering their pet, especially when it’s to ensure an animal’s well-being.

“I think there is kind of this stigma associated with shelters that everybody who is surrendering is, you know, heartless or they don’t love their animals. That’s absolutely not true,” Bernhart said.

Since 2021, there’s been almost double the amount of pet surrenders for economic reasons to SPCA Tampa Bay. Pet owners included in the category cited reasons like cost of moving, cost of living, facing eviction or homelessness, housing restrictions, domestic violence and hurricane-related costs.

“A majority of the people who are bringing their animals here love them and they don't want to give them up. They are forced to make a decision for the welfare of the animal,” she said.

In 2022, pet owners increasingly cited “moving costs” and “cannot afford” when surrendering their pets, Berhart said. During the same time frame, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan statistical area (MSA) outpaced national inflation rates and experienced record population growth.

With no indication that the surge in economic-related surrenders will dip to pre-2022 levels, Bernhart said the shelter is finding ways to meet pet owners' needs.

One way is by operating three pet food banks across Pinellas County:

In 2024, she said the distribution locations provided pet food to more than 4,000 families and almost 12,000 cats and dogs. The shelter also served 321 animals through a subsidized vaccine clinic program.

“We’re trying to help empower people to keep their pets with them,” Berhart said. “And pet food banks are one of the programs that we offer to help people make ends meet.”

She said the shelter is increasingly hearing from pet owners who are overwhelmed by the costs of pet food, veterinary care and grooming.

“I think shelters, historically were a place for animals to come and then get fixed up and find new homes, and we're finding that the community needs more from us,” Berhart said.

She expects the demand for shelters to offer food and other services to remain high as pet owners across the Tampa Bay region recover from record inflation in recent years.

Gabriella Paul covers the stories of people living paycheck to paycheck in the greater Tampa Bay region for WUSF. She's also a Report for America corps member. Here’s how you can share your story with her.