Opportunity Starts at Home Campaign Joins Panel on Pet Inclusive Affordable Housing at Humane World for Animals Annual Conference

The Opportunity Starts at Home (OSAH) campaign participated in a panel presentation, “Exploring the Importance of Cross-Sector Collaboration and Data-Based Pet-Inclusive Housing Policy Advocacy,” at the 2025 Animal Care Expo hosted by Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society). The panel focused on the connections between the affordable housing crisis and the well-being of people and pets while highlighting recent legislative efforts to improve outcomes. Panelists included Jessica Simpson, Senior Public Policy Specialist for Companion Animals at Humane World for Animals; Lauren Loney, Attorney/Founder of Lauren Loney Consulting, LLC and Research Assistant at the University of Denver Institute for Human Animal Connection (IHAC); and Julie Walker, OSAH Campaign Coordinator.  

Panelists highlighted affordable housing access and tenant protections as critical components of the intersection between housing justice and animal welfare advocacy. Julie Walker provided an overview of the national affordable housing crisis and shared ways that housing and animal welfare advocates are collaborating through the OSAH campaign to advance housing solutions. Lauren Loney shared themes from interviews with tenants in Houston, Texas regarding barriers to finding and maintaining pet-inclusive affordable housing, policy recommendations created in collaboration with tenants, and the frequency of housing-related companion animal relinquishment across 21 animal shelters in the U.S. from a 2019-2023 study. Jessica Simpson defined pet-inclusive housing as “rental housing that welcomes all cats and dogs as pets, regardless of their breed and size; and does not have exorbitant financial barriers, including nonrefundable fees or high monthly pet rent.” Jessica went on to highlight the severely limited amount of pet-inclusive housing, the additional cost burdens created by monthly pet fees for extremely low-income tenants, and examples of recent pet-inclusive housing legislation and policies.  

NLIHC’s 2025 The Gap report finds that nationally nearly 1 in 4 renters have extremely low-incomes, and there is a shortage of 7.1 million rental homes affordable and available to extremely low-income renter households. Humane World for Animals estimates that approximately 20 million pets are living with families below the national poverty line. The shortage of affordable housing is even more constrained for households with extremely low-incomes who have pets, as only 8% of all market rate housing is pet inclusive without breed, weight, and size restrictions. Animal welfare advocates and housing advocates can work together to expand federal affordable housing subsidies and advance tenant protections for households with pets, to ensure that the lowest-income renters can afford safe, stable, and pet-inclusive housing.  

Read the companion animal welfare fact sheet here.