Three animal shelters in Nassau land $790,000 in grants

Three municipal animal shelters in Nassau County were awarded a total of $790,535 in state grants to upgrade their facilities, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.

The awards include $500,000 for the Town of Hempstead to create a new canine medical suite and install kennels and soundproofing, as well as update its HVAC system, plumbing and drainage; $200,000 for North Hempstead to replace kennels and install epoxy flooring; and $90,535 for Glen Cove to upgrade its cat isolation walls and dog kennel walls and install a new fire alarm.

The grants were among 31 totaling $10 million under the Companion Animal Capital Fund across the state that were announced last week.

The grant program launched in 2017 and is overseen by the state Department of Agriculture. Though it predates the Companion Animal Care Standards Act, which went into effect Dec. 15, the application for the competitive grants asks shelters how their project will help the facility meet the new standards. The act sets guidelines for veterinary care, documentation, vaccinations and other aspects of operating animal shelters.

The Department of Agriculture’s website “encourages shelters to apply for this funding to also help them meet the requirements of the new law.”

“This money is there for them to do the capital improvements that they need to make, whether it be new kennels, new cat condos, epoxy on the walls, new HVAC,” said Libby Post, executive director of the New York State Animal Protection Federation, an animal advocacy organization. “All of this, really, a lot of this comes down to disease control.”

Post said resurfacing facilities with epoxy creates smooth surfaces that can be cleaned effectively, adding that newer kennels are also designed to be cleaned better. Animal waste is a fact of shelters, she said.

“It's cleaned up every day, but if that was in a porous surface, it would just soak it right in and that's how your disease spreads,” Post said.

HVAC upgrades aren’t just about keeping animals comfortable, Post said — they’re about segregating air flows to suppress airborne illness when sick animals are put into isolation.

“The HVAC is set up in a way where the air from that isolation room, when it's cycled, it goes outside,” she said. “It does not cycle to the rest of the shelter because that's how you spread disease.”

Post said the grant funding has enjoyed support from both sides of the political aisle.

“Puppies and kittens are the last bastion of nonpartisanship,” she said.