From the CEO
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCES thousands of seismic events every year, but none of those tremors has changed the landscape for animal lovers more than this fact: The NKLA Coalition, led by Best Friends, guided Los Angeles to a save rate of 90.5% for the L.A. shelter system for the year 2020. The second largest and most diverse city in the country is now no-kill (and it happened during a pandemic)!
The no-kill movement has come so far in the last 10 years that it’s easy to forget what animal welfare looked like in 2010, especially in Los Angeles. “Food fight” would be a polite way to describe the contentious circumstances that Best Friends faced when we laid out our plan to make that city no-kill.
When Brenda Barnette was hired by then-mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2010 as general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS), the shelter system had been in turmoil for a decade. Brenda was the seventh person to hold the position since 2001; it was a revolving door propelled by infighting, public protests and vandalism.
The city council had previously declared no-kill to be the city’s goal, but the turmoil prevented any real progress or sustained effort, with leader after leader being driven out. Los Angeles had earned a reputation in animal welfare circles as a place where leaders were more likely to fail than succeed. Brenda was the only qualified individual with a progressive, lifesaving track record who was willing to take on the challenge.
Best Friends had been working in L.A. since 1991, building a base of support and community collaborations through super adoption events, spay/neuter campaigns, a support program for community cat caregivers, volunteer programs and celebrity events. With Brenda’s arrival, I knew it was time to go for the whole enchilada and launch a citywide coalition modeled on our statewide no-kill coalition in Utah. I knew that if we could achieve no-kill in Los Angeles, a huge city with perhaps the most diverse population in the country, no-kill could be achieved anywhere.
Brenda had cut her teeth under Rich Avanzino, one of our movement’s founding fathers, at the San Francisco SPCA. Rich and his team made San Francisco the first no-kill city in the country. Coming off a successful sojourn as CEO of the Seattle Humane Society, Brenda saw a lifesaving opportunity in L.A. When she asked her mentor where she should start, he told her to contact Best Friends.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to look far because I was looking for her. When we shared the dais at a spay/neuter symposium in Los Angeles, I revealed that Best Friends was committed to making L.A. a no-kill city. The rest, as they say, is history.
We pulled together a steering committee of leading rescue and spay/neuter organizations, along with LAAS, to chart the course for getting to no-kill. Our first meeting was held in December 2010, and we spent the next 15 months building consensus, designing targeted programs, negotiating with the city, creating an award-winning ad campaign, and deflecting incoming fire from detractors and obstructionists. On April 16, 2012, we officially launched
Today, we are celebrating Los Angeles as the nation’s largest no-kill city and a leader in animal welfare and animal sheltering.
the No-Kill Los Angeles (NKLA) initiative with a night-to-remember party at the Hollywood House of Blues hosted by actor Hilary Swank.
Going in, I knew that making L.A. no-kill would be a big challenge. The city was still in the throes of the Great Recession, with 25% of its residents living at or below the poverty line. The six city shelters had taken in 56,000 dogs and cats in 2011, with a save rate of less than 60%. To reach the no-kill threshold of a 90% save rate, an additional 17,000 animals would need to be saved.
In 2011, 7,000 of the animals who lost their lives at LAAS were neonatal kittens. That sad fact was compounded by an injunction that prohibited LAAS from doing anything to support trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs for community cats. TNR is the only proven way to manage stray and free-roaming cat populations. We would have to fight with one hand tied behind our back. But we persevered and eventually won the battle.
Today, we are celebrating Los Angeles as the nation’s largest no-kill city and a leader in animal welfare and animal sheltering. Plus, NKLA is a major stepping-stone on the road to bringing the country to no-kill by 2025.
The NKLA Coalition now includes more than 140 organizations, and I can’t say enough about the compassion and commitment of everyone who had a role in this seismic achievement. I would be remiss, though, if I didn’t give a shout-out to the organizations that stepped forward in 2010 and, against all odds, set their teams to the task of achieving NKLA. Here’s to the charter members of the coalition and the first steering committee: Downtown Dog Rescue, Kitten Rescue, Stray Cat Alliance, Karma Rescue, FixNation, Michelson Found Animals Foundation and LAAS. You were there when the animals needed you and, as daunting as it was, we did it! Kudos to you and to the city’s leaders who stuck with us the entire way.
Yours in faithfulness to the animals,
I can’t say enough about the compassion and commitment of everyone who had a role in this seismic achievement.