Welcome to Basic Needs Foundation, Inc.
Basic Needs Foundation, Inc. (B.N.F. ) is a nonprofit organization.
We provide food for working homeless people, who live in their vehicles with their children. We also provide pet food for homeless people’s pets. Their vehicles are their homes!
We also provide pet food to low income people and cat food for feral cats. We find homes for pets, when their working homeless owners can no longer take care of them.
We organize and fundraise for the "Fix Your Pets" Mobile spay/neuter program. This allows us to hire mobile clinics and provide spaying and neutering to low income pet owners in small towns. The program simply does not exist in rural, small towns.
The best chance for a huge number of unwanted animals is that they don't exist. This can be done by spaying/neutering and T.N.R. (trapping/neutering/release) their intact parents.
Homeless
The Census Bureau reports about 100 million Americans—one in three—live in or perilously close to poverty. Many are working but rely on food stamps, government agencies and charity to feed, clothe and provide medical care to their children.
According to the USDA in September 2011, 46,268,257 Americans and 21,938,827 households use Supplemental Nutrition Assisance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps.
Hardly all marginalized Americans are recent immigrants with poor English proficiency. Many are high school graduates or have been to college but can’t land a decent, permanent job.
Food and hunger are a lens through which we see what America has become: a country indifferent to the basic needs of its citizens, one that forces millions of them to rely on private charity that is inadequate, inefficient and frequently unavailable.
The Joy of Giving and a dog named Webster by examiner.com
Homeless Josh and dog Webster's blog. He wants a JOB, so he can find place to live with his dog. http://LifeHumble.wordpress.com
Current Crisis
Driven by home foreclosures, evictions and loss of jobs, many homeless families are seeking help. Rescue missions and shelters in Los Angeles County are overwhelmed, as they don’t have enough space for homeless
people. These people live in their vehicles with children and pets since they have no other alternative.
Pets Of The Homeless
An estimated 5-10% of homeless people have pets. Dogs belonging to homeless people are some of the most well-adjusted.
For some reason, dogs with homeless owners understand their place in the "pack." If you watch a homeless person walking his or her dog, the animal is usually well behaved, staying just behind the person, accepting them as the "pack leader," even without being leashed. The bonds formed between homeless people and their pets are often very strong. Many homeless people take better care of the animal than they do themselves. Some will skip a meal in order to feed the animal. Some homeless people turn down shelter if the animal is refused.