Kristen Hassen—a highly-respected figure in the animal shelter world, owing to her accomplishments and innovations during major stints leading or helping lead animal facilities in Virginia, Austin, and Tucson–experiences that helped shape her vision, Hassen recalled this week on “Talking Animals,” of what she calls “the current crisis in sheltering.”
Hassen is now Director of American Pets Alive!, through which she oversees other projects and initiatives, including Human Animal Support Services, a national organization that aims to not just improve, but fundamentally reinvent animal services and sheltering.
Hassen outlined the serious shortcomings of shelters, how HASS seeks to mitigate those shortcomings, and notes how shelters, or even individuals, can support the HASS mission, while touching on the HASS Coalition’s pilot shelters that are embracing the organization’s mission and implementing its major strategies.
