Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

This has been a nightmare. The landlord of the space where we store the food for the Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry has forced our hand. We have to remove all of our items by Wednesday, June 17.

We’ve been storing the food in the actual second floor pantry of a volunteer’s home. It is perfectly legal to do so and there’s no health code concerns because we don’t repack. No need for a permit or a license; one of our volunteers work for the City permitting office so we know.

The tenant is excellent. Always pays rent on time, fastidious about shoveling snow, goes over and above on all requests. She’s a good tenant, but when she tried to be a good neighbor – he threatened her.

She asked him to set a date so we could make a plan. He said one week (which is ridiculous) and when she pushed, he said “Do you want to have someplace to live?”

We cannot jeopardize someone’s housing for this project. He’s in the wrong, he’s violating housing regulations and common decency. But he has the power so we gotta go.

The problem is there is nowhere to go. We’ve looked for solutions – empty retail spaces, storage facilities, faith communities, etc and come up empty.

We know what we need

• fully accessible, no steps
• about 10×10
• electric definite water helpful
• at least one nearby parking space for volunteer drivers to pick up ites
• Northside preferred

But we are also desperate. We have over 2000 pounds of food in the pantry that needs to go somewhere on Tuesday. I can keep in a box truck for one night, but the heat is brutal. We need somewhere climate controlled to store the canned food.

If we cannot find somewhere, we will donate the food to Animal Friends and Human Animal Rescue pet food pantries.

Our pantry is unique, we fill a niche. We are the only pantry that serves cat colony caretakers. About 72 of our registered individual households have cat colonies, over 600 cats. The ten pounds of food we provide is essential.

We are also the only pet food pantry that delivers. That came about after we experienced a theft in January. It is a great resource, asures nearly 100% of our folx receive their food.

We also serve another 150 people through partnerships with mutual aid food distros and street outreach programs. We don’t have a way to track cat colony caretaker v pet owner through them, but we assume quite a bit of colonies.

This is heartbreaking. For the pantry, yes. But for the volunteer who had to hear that threat when she’s done nothing wrong, I think that would be scary.

I spent a period of time homeless, six months in fact, and face that possibility in the future. So I am aware of how tenuous that line between having housing and not can be. He isn’t playing by the rules and there will be no consequences. She does follow the rules and still faces a lot of negative consequences.

So far, no solutions. A few tentative leads.

Here’s what isn’t helpful

• Outdoor storate suggestions
• Asking me to explain over and over why other options aren’t viable
• Steps
• Another similar situation of someone storing food if they rent.
• Asking me to give the food on hand