This Veterinarian Walks The Streets Of L.A.’s Skid Row To Help Dogs Of Homeless People

Medium

California is considered the third most expensive state to live in when it comes to living in the United States. And this is also why it either makes complete or no sense that it’s home to Skid Row, which is basically 50 blocks of space where most of the state’s most ‘chronically homeless’ people, that have been living on the streets for over a year.

While people love to visit the Golden State, most prefer to spend their time in Disney Land or walking down Rodeo Drive rather than visiting the rather desolate areas of Skid Row. In fact, most don’t go voluntarily at all. However, Dr. Kwane Stewart, better known as “The Street Vet” is anything but usual, and has actually become famous for not only intentionally visiting this area, but with a goal of giving stuff away.

That’s because Dr. Kwane is the head of a 501(c)(3), which happens to be a non-profit organization called Project Street Vet that takes donations and gets volunteers to help go out onto the streets of Skid Row to give free medical care for the pets of those in the homeless encampments. In fact, just last year they managed to help almost 600 animals with medical care.

Statistics show that there are an estimated 10-25% of homeless people in American that own pets, mostly for companionship, but also for security at times as well. And considering that these homeless people don’t necessarily have the ability to take care of themselves, they hardly have anything to provide to their pets, whom they tend to love more than anything else in the world.


Dr. Stewart isn’t a stranger to hardship himself. In fact, back in 1997, he had loads of student loans that needed to be paid off from the University of Colorado. He was working at a rescue shelter to pay the bills, but found himself rather depressed about the entire situation considering he was euthanizing between 60 to 70 animals a day.

But it was during a surprising encounter with a homeless man and his pet at a 7-11 that made Stewart decide he wanted to do more. Not too long after, he set up a pop-up clinic for animals beside a soup kitchen, and would even walk up and down the streets on some days looking for pets to give medical aid to, something that he never even mentioned to his family.

Before he knew it, seven years had passed when he ended up having an encounter with show business. He was made director of a show called ‘American Humane’s No Animals Were Harmed’ program, where he made sure that animals were treated properly and were not harmed during filming. And after they found out about his kind work for homeless people and their pets, they decided to create a show called Dr. Kwane: The Street Vet. Despite being just one season on Canadian TV, it managed to pull in tons of volunteers, pet product firms, and philanthropists to help him with his passion project.


By 2020, Dr. Stewart and his brother, Ian, began his non-profit that gives free exams, flea medications, supplies, vaccines, and other information to help those that are homeless learn how to raise and take care of their pets despite having limited resources.

Meanwhile, other charity organizations also partnered with animals clinics and Project Street Vet to bring other pop-up clinics to areas where the homeless can bring their pets for better and more sophisticated medical care. In fact, they even offer procedures such as neutering and spaying for their animals. Moreover, Project Street Vet even helps other qualified pet parents with veterinary pet care using financial assistance grants that can be obtained through them.

Aside from all the generosity the site has given, they even have other reports where Project Street Vet has helped almost 600 pets in other cities aside from Los Angeles, such as Atlanta, San Diego, and Webster, Florida. They’ve even helped at least 150 people with financial assistance.

Since they work on donations, contributions, and mostly volunteer work, you can find a way to do your part here.

See more about Dr. Stewart and his incredible advocacy in the video below.

 

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