Having the ability to save animal lives and be open 7 days a week for the general public to view, interact with and hopefully adopt is what we believe is an essential part of No-Kill and keeping this county at the No-Kill status...
For those not familiar with the definition of No-Kill, basically it means that no healthy, adoptable animal is killed and to achieve No-Kill status, 90% or more entering your shelter must live...At one time in our county when I first got involved out here in California in rescue, for every 10 animals that entered the shelter system, only one came out alive... Five years ago, our county had a kill rate of 60%... For every 10 animals that went into the shelter system, only four came out alive...
TLC has actively pursued the goal that no healthy, adoptable animal needs to die in our county since its beginning on June 9th of 2009... Yes, today is our 7th year anniversary and in 2,557 days, TLC has managed to save 2,723 animal lives - more than one day...
On a day we should be celebrating our victories and continuing to achieve our goals, we are being evicted by a landlord that does not want to lease to a dog rescue... Not that we don't pay our almost $5,000 a month rent... But because he does not want to lease to a rescue and it is a 'bad fit'....
On Monday, June 6th, we lost in court fighting the eviction and are currently waiting for the sheriff to post the notice on our door that we have 5 days to vacate the four spaces we have gutted, built out, created a rescue center in and have operated a full-time, volunteer-run organization in...
We find it incredible that there is currently 43 empty commercial properties in Simi Valley and not one of the landlords or owners are willing to lease space to a nonprofit rescue that provides such a valuable service to this community...
Even more ironic is that our county's shelter currently has more than 600 homeless animals - an all time high in their history - and they continue to struggle to keep the No-Kill status they fought so hard for in the summer of 2012... They have stopped owner surrenders for the past week, while we can offer no relief because we ourselves are being kicked out of our rental space!
The 'not in my neighborhood' or 'in my property' prevails... And it makes you wonder about things...
Simi Valley's citizens have long protested the huge number of massage parlors in our city - to the point we were referred to as 'Slimy Valley'... At last count there were 34, but these businesses don't seem to have a problem finding property to lease... To the point that in January of last year, our city council adopted a 45-day moratorium on the issuance of licenses for massage parlors... Something Mayor Huber spoke out about over 5 years ago... And something our police department has an additional workload to enter and inspect... We, as a city, struggle with the drug problem here as well... Two areas that attract the criminal element - both areas TLC volunteers have observed from the center and reported to the local police department as any good citizen would...
But to lease to us?... "Nah, not in my neighborhood"... Makes you wonder how many of these commercial landlords and owners actually live in our city...
In the meantime, TLC has no where to go and 57 dogs and puppies in our rescue... And five days to move.
