Photo by Jennifer Parsignault

In 2000, Eri Kriteman, a long-time animal rescuer, was inspired by a goal that hits home for animal-lovers everywhere: To help bring to an end the suffering and euthanization of animals that are homeless due to the animal overpopulation crisis. Kriteman’s solution? She founded the Heaven on Earth Society for Animals (HESA), a nonprofit, no-kill, cage-free sanctuary that provides both temporary and permanent housing and care for orphaned animals.

“Every being has an inherent right to a quality life; sick, feral, elderly, disabled [animals, too], not just the ‘adoptable’ ones,” Kriteman said. “Our mission is to improve the quality of life for homeless animals, especially those who are overlooked because of special needs and a low potential for adoption.”

In less than four years, HESA has served more than 400 homeless animals. The facility, located in Van Nuys, Calif., is a five-room home where dozens of cats and kittens with no place else to go live communally in the spacious, cage-free environment and are given high-quality food, medical care, toys for stimulus, and lots of love and affection. All the animals are available for adoption and any animal that doesn’t get adopted has a forever home within the facility.

“We have mostly cats and kittens now, but we’d like to expand the project in the future to include dogs, rabbits and other homeless animals as well,” said Jennifer Parsignault, the vice president of community relations for HESA. “Though we do find homes for most of our cats, special-needs animals --- those with illnesses such as feline immunodeficiency virus [FIV] and feline leukemia virus [FeLV] --- are often overlooked, as are elderly animals, because people think they’re too much work or too expensive to care for, or may not live as long as a healthier animal. In reality, the treatments are actually quite affordable and easy to administer, and these animals can live just as great a life on medication as healthy ones.” Parsignault fosters several homeless cats/kittens in addition to her own two companion kitties.

Recently, HESA launched its new Spay & Neuter Program, in conjunction with FixNation.org (a sister organization created by CatNippers), which offers free spay-and-neuter services for feral cats, and very low-cost services for companion animals. Through the program, HESA offers weekly/bi-monthly transportation services for the community to and from the spay/neuter clinic in an effort to make the surgery more feasible for pet owners who may shy away from it due to busy schedules or concerns about high prices.

“There are a lot of vets who will take advantage of people and charge [astronomical amounts] to spay or neuter people’s pets,” Parsignault said. “CatNippers also provides vouchers for companion cats to receive the surgery. All feral cats are free, as are male companion cats, and with the voucher, female companion cats can be spayed for as little as $15,” Parsignault said. Other services offered through the program are low-cost vaccines, de-worming, and flea treatments.

HESA is also working to launch a sponsorship program for the cats who are not adopted and remain at the sanctuary. “People will be able to sponsor a cat for a monthly premium, and they’ll receive a photo of the cat they sponsor, as well as monthly e-mails from the cat describing all that s/he has been up to,” Parsignault said. “We’d even like to take the program to schools so entire classes can adopt a cat for maybe $1 per student.”

 “I’ve always been an animal person, and I love the vibe of this organization.” Parsignault added. “I became passionate about this and now that I’m involved I can’t stop.”