Animal welfare groups commit $14 million to improve L.A. animal shelters

Two animal welfare groups say they will fund a $14-million grant to improve conditions at Los Angeles city animal shelters, in what the organizations say will be a first-of-its-kind investment in a municipal shelter system.

The grant will pay for 23 new full-time staff positions at the city’s six shelters, with the aim of improving the “live outcome” rate, which measures how many animals leave the shelter alive. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Best Friends Animal Society are jointly funding the grant.

“We saw some pretty significant suffering in the shelter system, and we thought that together, we could bring the skills, resources and experience to create change from within,” ASPCA president Matt Bershadker told The Times.

Both animal welfare groups worked closely with the L.A. shelters to deal with the many animals lost or left behind during the 2025 Palisades fire.

“We can take what happened during Palisades and really move it into the future,” Best Friends chief executive Julie Castle told The Times.

The city’s shelters, which are mandated to accept stray and abandoned animals, have come under criticism for inhumane treatment of the animals in their care. The Best Friends group released a report in 2024 highlighting poor conditions at the shelter and criticizing the leadership of the Animal Services Department, including former general manager Staycee Dains.

Dains, in an interview with The Times last year, pushed back against the criticism and said she was powerless to discipline employees she witnessed mistreating animals. On Friday, Mayor Karen Bass named longtime animal welfare advocate Gabrielle Amster to lead the department, which will require approval of the City Council.

Annette Ramirez, the department’s interim general manager, said the $14-million grant will work like a pilot program to prove that the nearly two dozen positions will make a difference in shelter operations.

The 23 positions include three new specialists for the Citywide Cat Program — a voucher program to spay and neuter free-roaming community cats — and more district managers so every shelter has a “buck-stops-here person,” Ramirez said, to hold people accountable for implementing changes.

Ten staff positions will be added for adoption assistance and six positions will serve as foster program specialists.

The grant also brings in four full-time advisors from Best Friends and ASPCA to focus on improving shelter operations, matching animals to adopters and fosters as quickly as possible.

The goal is to increase how many animals leave the shelters alive so it can act as a model for other shelters in the U.S., both executives said.

ASPCA will also work to improve the department’s veterinary and shelter medicine program, Bershadker said.

If the effort proves successful the department will seek additional funding to keep the added employees on the payroll, Ramirez said.

The Animal Services Department is seeking $31.8 million for its 2026-27 operational budget, up from $30.3 million last year.