Paw Fund Helps Homeless Help Their Pets

BERKELEY (KPIX 5) Once a month, across from the Berkeley Animal Shelter, Jill Posener's volunteers open up a van full of pet medicines and offer free vaccinations and other basic veterinary care for the East Bay's homeless dog and cat owners.

But 15 years ago, Posener thought differently.

"My first reaction was, 'How can you have an animal? you can't take care of yourself,'" she recalled.

Then, she says, she educated herself.

"First of all, animals are really crucial companions to people no matter what kind of money you have," she explained. "Secondly, homeless -- people without homes -- don't necessarily make bad pet owners. They might make the best pet owners!"

Like Jordan Trujillo and his dog Scarlett.

"It means that I can actually have a companion with me that's not going screw me over or leave me," he said.

Nancy Tejada brought her dog Simba to the outdoor clinic.

"He was shelter bound so we intercepted him," she said. "We were only supposed to be fostering but I think he is staying."

After ten years of doing this work on her own, Posener set up a non-profit she called Paw Fund in 2011. Now, with the help of dozens of volunteers, the clinics, along with spay and neuter referral, are going strong.

Posener says she's afraid of needles so she doesn't watch the vaccinations, but she sure sees what pet owners like herself get out of the program.

"What we see at our clinics is this real sense of accomplishment -- that they came to our clinics, they did something for their animals and their animal went home healthier."

And Posener says she's more of a people person anyway, in it for the human connection.

"And one of the things I'm aware of; I'm white -- shock -- I'm middle class, I'm European, I'm kind of a senior... so there's a hell of a lot of people that I don't have an immediate connection with," she said.

But Paw Fund connects her to the clients, while connecting the clients to their furry companions.

"We go home feeling like, 'Wow we did something good today, wow that worked out, wow that person really understood what her animal needed,'" she said.

So for helping keep pets healthy and allowing their owners to keep those animals in their lives, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Jill Posener.