Erin Robinson admits that once upon a time, she simply didn't know that community cats existed, let alone what you were supposed to do about them. That all began to change when she started volunteering in a county animal services facility during college in North Carolina, and when she went on to work for a high-volume spay/neuter clinic connected to Operation Catnip in Gainsville, Florida. Erin hasn't stopped working with community cats since, and she worked with Alley Cat Allies before landing her current role as Community Cats Program Manager at Humane Rescue Alliance in Washington, D.C.

Over the past decade, Humane Rescue Alliance's community cat programs have gone from being a small, grassroots, volunteer-based part of the organization to becoming truly mission-critical. The program offers free TNR for cats within Washington, D.C., including spay/neuter surgery, distemper and rabies vaccinations, topical treatment for parasites, and microchipping as part of their TNR packages. Erin feels that it's important to do as much as possible for community cats' health in one visit, as it's likely that this will be the only touch point the organization will have with these cats.

The program is funded by donors, and includes a relocation program called Blue Collar Cats for cats who are TNR candidates, but who don't have a safe place to return. Through this program, which has already placed 117 cats, cats are relocated to a business or homeowner who has reached out to request a cat. The program has very careful acclimation guidelines (available on the program website), and while most adopters are looking for assistance with rodent control, Erin stresses that these folks are truly giving these cats a new lease on life by adopting them. She is tracking retention and while initial results look great, Erin looks forward to reporting back on the program's numbers in a few years to see how it's working. A true believer in the importance of data and metrics, Erin is eager to work on collecting statistics on this and other programs to assist folks with convincing others that TNR is the right way to handle community cat populations.

To learn more, visit humanerescuealliance.org/communitycats, where you can connect directly to the Blue Collar Cats website as well.