Transpecies Care in the Margins: Interdisciplinary Support for Unhoused Pet Guardians
Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed, May 13, 2026 MDT
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Description: In Canada,~200,000 people experience homelessness, and ~20% are pet guardians (Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, 2014). Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, homelessness has increased, alongside a marked rise in encampments across urban landscapes. Encampments have expanded in size and geographic reach, bringing new + complex challenges for wellbeing. In response, Toronto Humane Society launched interdisciplinary pop-up clinics to deliver holistic, accessible, and non-judgmental care to unhoused pet guardians. These clinics offer integrated veterinary, behavioural, and social work support, in partnership with community organizations, reflecting trauma-informed, equity-oriented, One Health approaches. This presentation will explore unique considerations such as: ethical, logistical, and relational complexities of serving transpecies families living in non-traditional spaces; co-habitation on public lands; wildlife and environmental concerns in tent communities. Presenters will include interdisciplinary professionals from veterinary medicine and social work who collaboratively advocate for the dignity of transpecies families to meet people and their animals where they areā€”literally and figuratively.
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