Vet SOS Featured in Korean Magazine SisalIN

Vet SOS was recently approached by In Jeong Kim, a Korean journalist who is based in San Francisco, and was interested in writing a story on our program. We are pleased to share this English translation of her final piece, originally published in SisalIN.

I’d Rather sleep on the street than give you up

This story was written and translated by In Jeong Kim and edited by Jang Ilho.

The Homeless and Their Pets at Night 

It is a brutally cold night. Cleo curls up tight and shivers. Her short coat—she is a shorthaired breed—seems unable to hold in her body heat. Cleo was adopted from an animal shelter. A DNA test revealed she has a good deal of Pharaoh Hound in her—an Egyptian hunting dog. Her oversized ears, evolved to shed heat efficiently in a Mediterranean climate, are going cold in the San Francisco night air. They are parked on the city's west side, the area long known as the "Outside Lands." The name mirrors their own situation—pushed to the margins. The cheap lodging Angel had scraped together his dwindling funds to book turned them away, saying he could only stay if he left the dog behind. Together, they are back on the street. On nights like this, having even a battered old car to shelter in feels like a small mercy—even though its interior cools to nearly the same temperature as the air outside before long. Cleo has a veterinary checkup the next day, so Angel needs to get her to sleep. "I'm sorry, Cleo. Sorry we have to sleep in the car." He sits beside her in the back seat, stroking and soothing her. Each time other homeless people stumble by and peer into the car, Cleo startles and barks. She is trying to protect Angel. Her fierce barking drives them away, but Angel feels sorry watching her unable to settle down. He repeats to himself silently that he never wants to put her through this again. He reaches toward the trunk and pulls out the one blanket they have. He drapes it over Cleo. She rests her long muzzle on his lap. Where their skin meets, they warm each other. It is a long night. 

How could he ever forget the day he first adopted her—the moment he named that golden puppy with the unusually pointed ears "Cleopatra," saying she looked like an Egyptian queen? That day, too, Angel had been wavering, stepping in and out of the adoption line at the shelter, not yet sure he was ready to adopt. He had spent two years volunteering at the animal shelter, agonizing over whether he had enough time or money to raise a puppy. But when Angel's name was called, four-month-old Cleo looked up at him and pricked her ears. Every hesitation vanished. The nine years that followed were a life in which two beings became wholly entwined. Angel worked in restaurants, which typically meant being away for more than ten hours a day. When Cleo developed separation anxiety, he switched careers to become a freelance repairman. He felt bad leaving her alone for so long. Even after becoming homeless four years ago, he could not abandon Cleo. They went everywhere together. They drifted from couch to couch—at siblings', relatives', friends' places. Some nights they slept in the car. As their housing grew unstable, holding down work became harder too. Still, Angel's bag always held a brush to keep Cleo's coat glossy, water to keep her hydrated, and treats to feed her. Even on the days Angel went hungry, he found a way to get Cleo her meals. Cleo always eats first. He has never let her miss a single meal.

Around the same time, on the east side of the city, another human and dog wander the streets. "Pack up your things and move along, please." The officer's voice is flat and dry. Merci, a homeless woman, grips the leash of her black dog Rover with her bony wrist and reluctantly gets to her feet. She did not expect to stay long. She gets chased out everywhere. Packing up is routine by now. The cold is so harsh that tears well up even when she is just lying still. The Powell Street station—a major transit hub—is warmer than outside, so she had hoped to linger as long as possible. It's a shame. She thought she had been through everything, raising her son as a single mother, but homelessness is new. Severe mold had spread through the run-down place she was renting, and the landlord used the repairs as a pretext to evict Merci and her family. She is afraid to go out on the streets. Not just because of the cold, but because of trauma. After being attacked in a racially motivated assault by a stranger on her way to work, Merci had always feared the streets. If she hadn't rescued the abandoned puppy Rover four years ago, she would have sunk into depression and might never have been able to step outside again. When she became homeless, everyone told her to give up the dog first. They said having a dog would make it even harder to get into a shelter, and they were right. But Rover, the stray she had cared for since he was five weeks old, is family. The acquaintance who had asked her to foster Rover cut off contact and dumped him on Merci for good. She cannot abandon a dog that has already been abandoned once. Merci began living on the streets with Rover. She has no regrets. Even her greatest fear is not as frightening as the thought of Rover being abandoned or euthanized. She ties Rover to her body and falls asleep on the street, and Rover stands guard over her. When Merci cries, Rover licks her tears. Her day begins with the rounds she makes to find free dog food for Rover. Once Rover has eaten and rested enough, the two of them roam the city searching for food for Merci. 

What the Street Veterinarian and the Sociologist Saw 

Ilana, a veterinarian, would often sit down on the asphalt of the street to hold her clinic. On days she ran the street clinic (VetSOS), she loaded a van with donated medicine, dog food, and other supplies and drove out to places where the homeless gathered—under highway overpasses, in junkyards, and the like. People did not trust the veterinarian easily. They were, if anything, frightened, worried she might take their pets away the way Animal Control would. She had to drive the van slowly through the streets, calling out like an ice cream truck: "The vet is here! Anyone need a vet?" She first earned trust by vaccinating dogs and providing basic treatments. Homeless people who were initially skeptical began bringing their dogs once word spread that the care was free. Dogs with limps, dogs with bad teeth, dogs with overgrown nails were led by their owners to the street clinic. It usually took about a month to build enough trust that an owner would consent to letting her take a dog overnight for a spay or neuter surgery. Ilana worried that the homeless might not come back for their dogs after the procedure, but her fears were unfounded. Far from abandoning them, they spent the night outside the building, waiting for the surgery to be over. Early in the morning, they knocked on the door asking, "Can I take my dog?" 

Ilana's concern that she might encounter animals in conditions so dire as to demand difficult ethical decisions was, over the past twenty-five years on the street clinic circuit, pleasantly proven wrong time after time. The dogs were generally healthy and well-fed. The most common problem was not malnutrition but being overweight. Like Angel and Merci, their owners fed them even when they themselves could not eat. And since they usually had nowhere to store food properly, they poured it into a large bowl and let the dogs eat at will. The dogs, raised on the streets, tended to be highly sociable. Ilana

often saw owners who would pick up a discarded blanket from the sidewalk and play with their dogs all day long, needing no fancy toys. For homeless people—most of whom have no family or whose family ties have been severed—a pet is often their only family. Raising a dog without housing means accepting 

that you cannot leave it behind anywhere. Being together twenty-four hours a day makes their bond extraordinarily close. Ilana had never seen abuse unless the owner had a mental illness. Homeless people refuse to enter shelters or supportive housing if they cannot bring their pets, choosing instead to sleep in cars or tents. One survey found that roughly half of pet-owning homeless individuals had been turned away from a shelter, underscoring their predicament. The pet—often the homeless person's only relational lifeline—becomes a barrier when they try to find a place to live. People often approach the homeless with what they believe to be good intentions, suggesting they sell their dogs—driven by a desire to "save" the "poor" animal. But Ilana never saw anyone take up such an offer. She watched them carry the lasting wound of being asked to give up their dogs—"Are you asking me to sell my family?" 

Leslie, a sociologist who had come to Ilana saying she was researching the relationship between the homeless pet owners and their pets, had once made such a proposal herself. On a summer day in Boulder, Colorado, she saw a homeless man panhandling with his dog on a traffic island at an intersection. Feeling sorry for the dog, she offered to buy it and send it to a "good home." She told him that while he may have chosen a life of homelessness, his dog could have a "better life." The man refused firmly and argued with Leslie until he bursted out: "My dog is doing just fine. He runs around in the woods all day. He eats well, drinks plenty of water, and has all his shots. He never leaves my side, so please just leave us alone." The shock of that encounter planted the seed of her research. To that was added what she witnessed while volunteering at a stray dog shelter. One owner had a home, but when his dog escaped and ended up at the shelter, he couldn't be bothered and dragged his feet for days before coming to pick it up. Meanwhile, a homeless owner walked until the sole of his only pair of shoes fell apart, searching everywhere for his lost dog. He came to the shelter every day, weeping, asking whether his dog was there. Leslie's assumption that a homeless person cannot be a "good owner" began to crack. 

From that point on, Leslie set out to study these relationships. With the help of Ilana and others, she met seventy-five homeless pet owners and had long conversations with each. In the stories they told, dogs and cats appeared as beings that had transformed their lives, or kept them from ending their own. Even people who had lost all family bonds and, after years on the street, could no longer trust friends, could still rely on a pet. The animals became anchors in their lives, giving them a sense of purpose and helping them hold on to their "better selves." At the conclusion of her research, Leslie arrived at a finding: the redemption narrative—the idea that one can contribute to the world through "devotion beyond the self"—is not reserved solely for those living privileged lives. People like the homeless, who have long been regarded as incapable of contributing to society, can also claim a redemption narrative through their devotion to their pets. And it is not merely an individualistic narrative, but one of mutual dependence. Leslie's research aligned precisely with what Ilana had observed about these relationships on the ground over the years. 

"That Dog Gave Me a Life" 

In 2001, at the very origin of the street clinic, there was a person and an animal who had saved each other. Pali and her dog, Leadbelly. Pali was a "wild child." Her mother was homeless. Pali and her younger brother grew up neglected. She has no memory of her mother putting her to bed or dressing her. They

slept in bushes, among other places. Her mother suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction and was regularly taken away to psychiatric hospitals or jail. Pali was often anxious, and her sense of time was hazy. She has a million memories, but they drift through the air in fragments—words like trauma, violence, chaos, police. Her mother died when Pali was around ten. People said she was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave, but Pali does not know where. She felt nothing. By eleven, Pali was already using drugs. She lived among a homeless community. She realized her "soul was dead" around the time even drugs had stopped having any effect. The only moments she could feel peace were when she was with animals. She would gather the hamburgers that McDonald's discarded at the end of the day's business and head to a junkyard. Sitting inside a wrecked car with a sack of hamburgers, at least nine dogs would bark and squeeze their way in. She would feed them for hours, and eventually they would lie down around her in a circle. When she spotted an injured pigeon or a skeletal kitten in the junkyard, she would care for it for days. In those moments, the chaos would briefly stop and stillness would arrive. When she hit rock bottom, she went to an animal shelter to look at the strays. She never dreamed of adopting one. She thought she couldn't keep a dog safe in her current circumstances. Then her eyes met those of a black dog at the shelter, staring at her. He was tapping the cage door with its front paw, watching her. A passing staff member tossed out the words, "That dog's about to be put down." Her childhood—unwanted, uncared for, hopeless—flashed through her mind. She could not leave him behind. Pali made up a home address that didn't exist, filled out the paperwork, and took the dog. That was Leadbelly, Pali's first pet. 

Pali, for whom violence had been so routine that she was numb even when being beaten, was in a relationship with an aggressive man at the time. It was only when she saw Leadbelly trembling violently in response to his behavior that she was able to flee the relationship. She wanted to protect that dog with everything she had. If the dog was afraid, she could no longer live like this. While trying to break away from her old crowd, she ended up in jail. The guilt of being separated from Leadbelly for about three weeks changed the course of her life forever. On the day she was released, standing barefoot in the rain on the street, she resolved to step outside the only life she had ever known. Out of the lawless world, and into whatever lay beyond it. She wanted to be a responsible owner for Leadbelly. While friends looked after Leadbelly, Pali checked herself into a rehab facility of her own volition. She quit alcohol and drugs. After that, she enrolled at a city college and studied photography. She took documentary photographs of homelessness. She rode along in free medical vans serving the homeless, and it was then that the idea struck her: given the significant number of homeless people with pets, a free veterinary service was urgently needed. Pali knew from experience that homeless people would skip the doctor when they themselves were sick, but they always made sure their dogs got treatment. Ilana, brimming with a desire to help, was the ideal partner. In the early days of the street clinic, Pali rode alongside Ilana in the van, persuading people to bring their pets in for care. Her lived experience as a formerly homeless person was invaluable. She received low-income housing assistance and found her first home where she could live with Leadbelly. With a home, she began fostering rescue dogs as a volunteer. The volunteering led to the founding of an animal rescue organization. Over the past twenty-five years, Pali has saved more than thirty-five thousand animals—those facing euthanasia, those that had been abandoned. Leadbelly and the animals gave her the bricks to build an edifice of life that no one had ever given her before. She once thought she did not know who she was, but she became someone who chooses "the right thing for animals." Pali says that if Leadbelly had not given her "real love," she would not be alive today. 

A Home for You

Angel and Cleo have recently, after four long years, managed to sign a lease. It is the result of Angel's tireless effort to secure a safe space for Cleo. Their new home is an SRO—a single-room occupancy unit—in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. The building, long used as a budget lodging house, has been converted into supportive housing for the homeless and low-income residents. A single room is roughly seventy square feet. A shared bathroom sits at the end of a long hallway. When Angel grabs his toiletries and steps out of the room, Cleo panics, thinking she is being abandoned—she will need more time to adjust. It is a transitional state, not quite full housing stability, but Angel feels they have taken a step forward because of Cleo. Each morning Cleo nudges him awake with her nose, and wherever she leads him on their walks, they eventually arrive at some beautiful place they have never seen before—and this feels like something similar. On their first night in the new place, Angel strokes Cleo gently and talks to her. "Cleo, we found a new home. It's not the greatest place, but we can stay here for a while. There are a lot of neighbors, so it's a pretty lively building, right?" When voices and footsteps carry loudly through the wall from the next room, Cleo pricks her ears. "Don't worry. We're home." Cleo lifts her head, looks at Angel, then climbs onto the bed and leans against his shoulder. Angel thinks she understood. Soon, Cleo stretches her body out long on the bed. And drifts off to sleep. It is the sight Angel has been waiting to see.