Seattle Veterinary Outreach is a mobile team that provides veterinary services for pets owned by homeless and low-income individuals and families in the Puget Sound region. Their mission is to provide compassionate mobile veterinary care so homeless people and their pets can thrive together. This service is reserved for pets of people living homeless or low income.
A partnership is in the works to keep pets just as healthy as their human components. Cool thing, it’s all free. A combination clinic with medical staff to care for both. They’re able to pay for all of this with grants from Seattle King County Public Health and from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Seattle Veterinary Outreach provides services and support to assist in keeping people living homeless and their companion animals safe, healthy and together.
“By keeping pets healthy first of all they’re there for their human companions their owners you could say and second of all the pets are actually serving a purpose by encouraging them to take care of themselves we are seeing people who might not get vaccinated or getting vaccinated because they want to be there for their pets,” explained Veterinarian Hanna Ekstrom. It’s a win-win for low income, or people experiencing homelessness and their pets.
Veterinarian Hanna Ekstrom said they regularly provides free care for pets and now they’re also partnering with others, to take advantage of a great opportunity to also get those pets’ parents the care they need. Since launching her nonprofit in 2019, Ekström has provided veterinary care to more than 1,000 pets belonging to homeless and low-income people in Seattle — and her practice is rapidly growing.
