10/11/2025
This Thursday there was supposed to be a San Jose City Council NSE meeting with an update on the progress of the Animal Services Department. You can read the report here. The meeting was cancelled.
https://sanjose.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=14834621&GUID=3495CCD3-A464-4F16-92FC-FEFFDA510FDB
GDLN was mentioned in the report, so I felt compelled to respond to City Council, Mr. Loesch and the Mayor with this email. I do not know now, since the meeting was cancelled, if the response will be put into the public record. So I'd like to make it public here. It is important to understand how hoarding happens and what the general public finds with when looking for help. It's very long, thank you for taking the time to read it.
Good afternoon,
The Animal Care and Services Annual Report dated September 26, 2025, states, ACS worked collaboratively with Gatos de la Noche, The Dancing Cat, Humane Society Silicon Valley (HSSV) and Nine Lives to humanely address a hoarding case in San Jose. Collectively the organizations collaborated to provide to TNR for all the cats living in and around the residence and find homes for a house where approximately 100 cats and kittens were living.
The reported "collaboration" contrasts sharply with the actual events and highlights SJACC's culpability in allowing the situation to escalate.
Starting in 2019, Brad Dunham repeatedly sought help from SJACC regarding the growing cat problem in his neighborhood, where neighbors were feeding cats and allowing them to breed unabated. Brad and his wife did their best to help, spaying, neutering, bringing litters indoors, and feeding cats. Even after Animal Control received reports about the overwhelming number of cats at Brad's home, they never followed up effectively.
In late December 2024, following the sudden death of Brad’s wife, his family found upwards of 100 cats in the house. On December 28, Ian Barker, Brad's son-in-law, attempted to surrender five crates of nursing mothers and kittens at SJACC.
Intake staff initially suggested that this was an Animal Control issue, then, after consulting management, declared they couldn't help, and deemed TNR out of the question because Brad was moving. They insisted it was an owner surrender, charging a fee. They charged Mr. Barker $220 for the cats and the unweaned kittens, agreeing to take only one mother and her litter and a pregnant cat. They turned him away, telling him other shelters wouldn't help. Ian, a highly respected attorney, reported being "scoffed" at in some of his interactions with staff. I’ve attached his statements. Let me just reiterate, Mr. Barker told SJACC staff there were upwards of 100 cats in his father-in-law’s home and they turned him away, taking only one mother and her kittens and a pregnant cat.
Three days later, I was contacted by one of my rescue partners about Brad’s situation. With communication absolutely impossible with SJACC, I was had to work with a rescue partner, Kim McIntyre, to contact Jay Terrado. Jay subsequently instructed Mr. Barker to return to the shelter to surrender the nursing mothers and kittens, and instructed staff to return Mr. Barker's $220.
For the next five months, I was at the home at least 3 times a week, working to separate males from females, facilitate surgeries (subsidized by Chris Queen of Purrific Rescue), and contact rescues to find homes for the many friendly cats. I actively worked to keep the cats out of the shelter, given concerns that the burden of these cats would pose for the facility and ongoing concerns about the medical care there. With the vital assistance of rescue partners (HSSV, Nine Lives, Cat Welfare Advocates, and The Dancing Cat), we rehomed over 100 cats and performed TNR on at least 50 more.
While SJACC’s actions were invaluable, their involvement was reactive, not collaborative.
After initially rejecting the cats, SJACC eventually accepted 19 surrendered cats and kittens, They returned five cats that were failing in the shelter environment three of which were eventually adopted. They also provided essential TNR services and transportation through their partnership with Nine Lives and through their medical department at SJACC..
These crucial steps were only secured through my direct and persistent requests following the initial turn-away. Given this reactive nature, calling the effort a "collaboration" is a significant stretch and feels like putting lipstick on a pig, masking the fact that advocacy was required to leverage the shelter's resources.
This incident underscores a systemic issue. There is a breakdown in responsiveness and communication at the municipal level that forced a crisis into the community's hands. As the person on the ground for five months, I know firsthand that the exhaustive dedication of private rescue groups and individual advocates resolved a dangerous, escalating situation that should have been mitigated years earlier through effective Animal Control intervention. The claim of "collaboration" in the annual report serves only to diminish the immense personal effort required by people like me and our community partners, and to obscure the initial operational failures that allowed the cat population to explode in the first place. And the absolute shocking behavior of staff and management when Mr. Barker came to them with such a heartbreaking and stressful situation, turning him away with a car full of cats and kittens.
My hope is that the truth of this event compels real change, because until SJACC demonstrates proactive engagement and transparent communication, the burden of crisis management will continue to fall unfairly on the individuals who step up to save lives.
Jenna Skinner
Director
Gatos de la Noche
