Dog News

Heartbroken Homeless Man Hoped To Find A Foster For His Dog … Instead, He Found A Home!

by Amy Drew

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The above video (we couldn’t get through half a minute of it without crying) was posted by Sacramento’s Front Street Animal Shelter last week.

Robert, who adopted his pit bull, Meaty, from the Front Street a few months back, but now — having been evicted from his home — has been having trouble caring for the dog while trying to find a place for his family to live.

“My name is Robert, I’m 47 years old, I have a family, a career, a master’s degree, a pet – and I’m homeless,” he says earnestly….

Few shelters allow pets, and so Robert has been sleeping in his car with Meaty.

“…because he didn’t want Meaty to be cold and alone,” Front Street wrote in a Facebook post.

Robert came to the shelter to try to find a foster for Meaty until the family found suitable housing, but in the process of making the video, shelter manager Gina Knepp, the Sacramento Bee reported, was moved to action, paying for three nights at a dog-friendly hotel to keep them all together.

Later that week: even better news.

Thanks to the community’s heartfelt reaction to the story, a rental home was found for the whole family!

It is just one story in a sea of sad ones. Housing costs in the area are rising faster than many can keep up.

“I have lots of questions on how we can solve this problem, but I think primarily No. 1 for me right now is reaching out to our community, people that live in Sacramento, to agree to open up their homes for a pet – whether it’s a week, a month or three months – while their human being transitions into permanent housing and gets back on their feet again,” Knepp told the Sacramento Bee.”

Do you live in the Sacramento area? To foster an animal at Front Street, click here!