SANTEE, Calif. — Construction began Tuesday morning, October 15, on a brand new $37 million animal shelter in Santee.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the site near Riverview Parkway and Magnolia Avenue.
The county facility will be 23,000 square feet and will offer new animal housing, animal intake during disasters and pet adoption services.
This comes at a time when shelters locally and across the nation are over capacity.
"There is such an overabundance of animals in shelters looking for homes, we need more space, more facilities to accommodate these animals," said Vaughn Maurice, Director of Animal Services.
He said some pets have been under their care for more than a year.
He said during the pandemic, people adopted pets in record numbers. Once they went back to work, some decided they could no longer handle having a pet. Others surrendered them as inflation hit, and they could no longer afford to pay for food and medical care.
Howard, a two-year-old Hound, Shepard-mix, has been at the shelter since February. He got the groundbreaking ceremony started by digging in the dirt. He was a little camera-shy at first, but eventually started to dig.
If you would like more information about Howard or any other pets, just click here.
