Thumbnail photo courtesy of Del Norte County; Above, Camp Berry founder Rhonda Berry says that of the 150 puppies she's rescued in about a year 80% of them have come from the homeless encampments. | Photo courtesy of GoFundMe Gloria Bobertz says she understands that for some people struggling with homelessness, their dog is often their only friend. She doesn’t think they shouldn’t have pets, but after nearly 20 years working as a behavioral health specialist for Del Norte County, Bobertz, who’s now retired and works with cadaver and search and rescue dogs, said she’s seen the conditions some of these animals are in. She said she had a particularly hard time with a litter of puppies she brought to Camp Berry in July “They were starved,” Bobertz told Redwood Voice Community News. “I don’t know what they were given to eat, but I can tell you it smelled so rotten. And just the look in their eyes — how can you do this to another living creature?” Bobertz and Camp Berry founder Rhonda Berry say there’s a dog overbreeding problem among Del Norte County’s homeless population. Of the roughly 150 puppies the nonprofit has rescued since August 2024, about 80% comes from the marshy wooded areas east of Crescent City known locally as the Swamps, Berry says. With Del Norte County expected to finish its emergency homeless shelter and micro village supportive housing site on Williams Drive later this month, Bobertz and Berry say those who take advantage of the programs should learn how to care for their pets. “Pay for the spay and neuter, or at least help with the cost,” Bobertz said. “And educate these folks that if you’re having a hard time, you don’t want to put some other living creature in the same predicament that you’re in. It’s not fair to them.” The $10.8 million Encampment Resolution Funding grant Del Norte County received to build the shelter and micro village doesn’t include funding for animals, said Charlaine Mazzei, executive director of Del Norte Mission Possible. But because its staff know that people won’t leave their pets — Mazzei said that’s often a barrier to housing — the shelter and micro village will include pet-friendly areas and kennels. Del Norte Mission Possible will provide the case management services for clients at the shelter and the micro village in conjunction with the Del Norte County Department of Health and Human Services. Del Norte Mission Possible is still working on its policies concerning animals, but a potential client and their pet is “part of the whole package,” Mazzei said. “Some of the confusion, I think, is over what the purpose of the encampment resolution grant is for, and it’s not to address animals,” she said. “It’s focused on people. And if they have animals, we will do what we can to accommodate those needs in that area.” Bobertz said she’d like both the Department of Health and Human Services and Del Norte Mission Possible “to publicly say what they plan on doing.” “I think they’re under maybe the assumption that the pound can take care of the funding for this or Camp Berry can take care of it — they have the funding for this — and that’s not true,” she said. “And not everybody wants to be a part of their mission and contribute to this because they can’t. Their hands are full helping the animals.” Though the Williams Drive campus is still being developed, Del Norte Mission Possible is already identifying potential clients for the shelter and micro village, Daphne Lambert, the organization’s director of homeless services and founder, told Redwood Voice on Aug. 22. That includes asking them if they have any animals, she said. According to Lambert, Del Norte Mission Possible has a working relationship with South Coast Humane Society in Brookings. That organization helps spay and neuter animals for residents at the Legacy, DHHS’s permanent supportive housing apartment building in Crescent City, she said. “I have a case manager who’s just tremendous as far as setting up appointments to get dogs spayed, neutered and licensed,” Lambert said. “With the shelter… we [will] work with getting animals spayed and neutered and make sure they have their shots and licenses and to make sure their dog’s temperament is OK to be with other dogs. They also have to have their animal on a leash at all times.” According to Mazzei, Del Norte Mission Possible doesn’t receive much help from the Del Norte Humane Society or other Del Norte County pet rescues. “It would be awesome if the community here would help with those things and maybe do some charitable work and not expect compensation,” Mazzei said. Lambert said Del Norte Mission Possible already offers pet food to those living with homelessness during their outreach days. That will continue with the emergency shelter and micro village. She said that the reason Mission Possible works with the South Coast Humane Society is because they don’t want to be a burden on local veterinarians. “We do have individual funders that we can ask for support in certain times and areas,” Lambert said. “We have people who are housed that want us to pay for their pet fees and vet care, and we can’t do anything like that.” Berry said she’s helped a Del Norte Mission Possible client before; a resident at the Legacy needed to go to rehab and couldn’t bring her dog. The individual’s case worker and the individual themselves said there was funding available to reimburse Berry for the dog’s care. But, Berry said, she was never compensated. “A hundred dollars would have gone so far,”she said. “We supplied all the food. We got the dog spayed while she was with us. We did all the aftercare and took care of the vaccines and rabies shots and everything. And we’ve never seen a penny. We never even got a thank you.” When asked about the situation, Mazzei said it sounded like Berry had a conflict with one individual. “If we as an organization make arrangements with someone to do something for us [we’ll find out[ what are the financial arrangements for that and we’re going to follow through on what we promise,” Mazzei said. Berry, who started Camp Berry in 2018 and moved to its current Parkway Drive location when it achieved nonprofit status in 2022, said initially the animals she rescued came from unwanted litters people asked her to take or were giving away. She’d take the puppies in if their owners spayed or neutered the rest of their animals. Berry said she could trace her rescues back to the homeless encampments in late January or early February 2024. “There was a lady that took a shopping cart to the pound. I think there were 16 puppies in that shopping cart,” she said. “The pound was not set up to take care of them, so they came to us. They still belonged to the pound, but we cared for them and took care of their daily needs until they could figure out where they could go.” After that, Berry took in a 3-week old puppy that had been abandoned in the bushes at Starbucks. Then there were seven puppies that came from squatters in a building that was being torn down, she said. “How we find out and get all of our pups is through word of mouth,” she said. “It is someone saying I was able to get these out of the homeless camps, can you take them?” According to Bobertz, the puppies she brought to Camp Berry in July was the result of someone either trying to sell or trade for them at Walmart. A bystander stepped in and took the puppies into the store and “[she] ended up taking them to Camp Berry.” Camp Berry has adopted 38 puppies since Jan. 1 this year. Last year between January and December, Camp Berry had 56 adoptions and took in 65 dogs. This year, so far, Berry said her organization has rescued 59 dogs. Camp Berry is also looking for a new home. The owners of the property that houses Camp Berry plans to sell and the organization is hoping to buy it. According to a Facebook post, Camp Berry is not taking any more animals until its owners are sure there's still a home for them. Bobertz estimated that there are an additional 150 to 200 puppies and dogs in the encampments that “we don’t know about.” Del Norte County’s 6,700 square-foot homeless shelter will consist of 60 beds and eight bathrooms. Some of those beds will be walled off from the rest of the area to allow for privacy for those recuperating from injury or medical treatment. There will also be laundry facilities on site. The micro village will consist of 25 sleeping cabins. Each cabin will house two units. There will be two bathroom facilities, a community building and green space for pets. A modular kitchen building will serve both the micro village and the emergency shelter and an administrative building will house offices for Del Norte Mission Possible and DHHS staff.