Companion Animal Care Articles used with permission from All-Creatures.org

The National Link Coalition discusses the Pet-Inclusive Housing Initiative's work to make housing more accessible for people with companion animals.

Growing from Pet-Friendly to Pet-Inclusive
From The National Link Coalition
June 2025

Images from Canva

Ross Barker and Sara Maria Muriello, with Michelson Found Animals’ Pet-Inclusive Housing Initiative, reminded attendees to “Mind the Housing Gap!” The valuable experiences learned over the years in bringing residents’ pets into shelters can be adapted relatively easily into homeless shelters, transitional housing, and especially more broadly into multi-family rental housing.

Although 76% of rental housing providers say they are pet-friendly, 72% of renters say pet-friendly housing is hard to find. Meanwhile, the term “pet-friendly” is hard to define; rental housing providers may say they are while they impose bans against certain breeds or prohibitive pet damage fees. The Initiative has uncovered significant gaps in many major-market areas: between 64% and 92% of housing providers say they are pet-friendly, but only 10% are pet-inclusive with no breed restrictions.

There are widespread challenges for renters in an era of low housing availability and high costs. “But layering on the pet piece adds another dimension,” said Barker. “When the folks you people deal with need housing, this is the world they enter into,” added Muriello.

The Initiative is working to transform rental housing from “pet-friendly” to “pet-inclusive” — housing that allows residents to have at least one pet with no breed restrictions, no weight or size restrictions, no non-benefit fees, and allow basic pet amenities.

The key is to get rental providers to automatically think of pets as “family” and to break down their arguments by showing that their concerns about animals can be overcome creatively and easily, said Muriello.

These concerns include:

• Mistaken beliefs about animals causing property damage or bites;
• Not being able to get insurance coverage;
• Problems with pet waste; and
• Objections from other tenants.

Children cause more damage than pets, but rentals don’t charge extra fees for children, she explained. Concerns about dog waste can be mitigated by installing more pet waste stations on the property. The average cost of pet-caused damages is only a few hundred dollars – well within the range of what landlords normally charge as a regular damage deposit.

The Initiative has a Pet Personality Profile and a sample pet agreement to help housing providers better evaluate if there’s a risk with a particular renter with pets.

---

Posted on All-Creatures.org: June 10, 2025
Return to Companion Animal Care