Long Beach Humane Society stops taking new cats until they raise $50,000 to recover from the pandemic

The 30 cats and kittens living at a shelter in Island Park aren’t lonely, even as their numbers dwindle due to financial strains.

Last month, the Long Beach Humane Society, the nonprofit that runs Kitty Cove on Austin Boulevard, decided it couldn’t afford to take in more felines until it recovers from the falling levels of donations during the pandemic.

“Because the fundraising and our bank account has taken such a hit, the plan is not to take any more animals in,” Helen Aloi, director of the organization, said last week. The organization made the decision just after Christmas, she said.

“We went through the financials and it doesn't behoove us to take cats in,” Aloi said. “It costs us a lot of money to house one cat [and] you don't know how long the cat will be with you.”

The cat population at Kitty Cove usually ranges from about 70 to 100 cats at any given time.

“When things get better, we will start taking more animals in,” Aloi said.

A dry-erase calendar showed two to four volunteers scheduled for every day of the month. 

"It takes an army to take care of what we got going on here," Aloi said. 

The shelter asks for a donation of $200 to adopt a cat, and although most people pay that, Aloi said that covers a small fraction of the expense of housing and caring for cats. Before the pandemic, the organization managed to fund its operations through multiple approaches to fundraising, but that dropped off sharply, she said.

According to the nonprofit’s publicly available federal 990 tax forms, its revenue for ordinary “gifts, grants, contributions and membership fees” dropped from $75,208 in 2019 to $10,750 in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. That revenue increased to $53,759 in 2021 and to $72,933 in 2022, tax records show. Though that was not the nonprofit’s only source of revenue, it was its largest in most years from 2018 through 2022, tax records show.

Aloi said that during the pandemic the shelter tapped into its reserves. During that time, the nonprofit’s assets decreased from $78,531 in 2018 to $34,123 at the end of 2022, according to tax records.

In 2022, the nonprofit’s expenses totaled $119,478 but its total revenue was $108,936, meaning that it ended the year with a $10,542 deficit that was closed by tapping into assets, tax records show.

Though the organization is run by unpaid volunteers, including its director, it has expenses. The organization’s monthly expenses total about $10,500, according to figures it provided. The biggest expense is $5,000 for cat food, cat box litter and other supplies followed by $3,000 in veterinarian bills. Rent, insurance and utilities account for $2,500, according to organization figures. Though they do a handful of dog adoptions every year, the dogs are kept in foster homes rather than in the organization’s shelter, Aloi said.

The pandemic hit many nonprofits' bottom lines as giving dried up, according to Rick Cohen, spokesman and chief operating officer of Washington, D.C.-based National Council of Nonprofits.

“The pandemic was a turning point for everyone. Fundraising for a lot of organizations came to a halt,” Cohen said in an interview. “A lot of them relied on in-person fundraisers. And those that were able to go to virtual fundraisers found that they weren't as successful.”

For now, the cats at Kitty Cove have a loving home but until the Long Beach Humane Society raises about $50,000 to rebuild its financial cushion, Aloi said they won’t be joined by newcomers.

“These guys are our priority,” Aloi said of the cats and kittens at the shelter now. “They need a home.”