Underfoot

In this special budget episode, host Will Zweigart sits down again with Allie Taylor, President of Voters for Animal Rights, to unpack how city budgeting shapes the future of animal welfare—from affordable spay/neuter and pet food access to the larger political systems that determine whether families can keep their pets in the first place. Together, they break down what’s happening right now insid...

After the end of the season, we stay with the question at the heart of Underfoot: what would it actually take to fix New York City’s animal welfare system? In this bonus episode, host Will Zweigart sits down with Allie Taylor, President of Voters for Animal Rights, to break down the policy gaps behind the crisis — and the concrete steps the city could take right now to prevent pets from ending up...

To close the season, we look toward bold, realistic solutions and a future where New York’s animal care system finally works. We revisit the blocks and caretakers from earlier episodes to imagine what changes when the city commits to access, equity, and shared responsibility. Through conversations with rescuers, policy leaders, and community members, we outline a scalable blueprint: expanding affo...

New York’s cat crisis didn’t appear out of nowhere. It was built through decades of underinvestment and policy decisions that left no agency truly responsible for animal welfare. In this episode, we examine why the city has been so slow to act and how bureaucratic gaps and fragmented authority make progress nearly impossible. We explore what a prevention-first model could look like — citywide spay...

As the city’s animal safety net fails, rescue volunteers step in — pouring their time, money, and emotional energy into a crisis they didn’t create. This episode follows caretakers and rescuers managing entire colonies on their own, waking at dawn to feed dozens of cats, spending their own money on medical care, and experiencing the burnout that comes from doing the city’s work for free. Inside Fl...

The cost of caring for a pet in New York City has skyrocketed, putting even basic veterinary care out of reach for many households. In this episode, we hear from families navigating impossible choices, from high intake fees to relying on food stamps to feed their cats. We unpack how affordability, access, and inequality converge to leave more pets at risk, and more cats struggling outside. Feature...

We zoom out from one Brooklyn block to the entire city — tracing how decades of underfunding, housing instability, and broken policies pushed New York’s animal shelter system to the edge. Featuring advocates, rescuers, and city officials, this episode explores what happens when good intentions meet broken infrastructure — and what it would take to build a more humane, sustainable model for care. F...

Every block has a story, and sometimes, it starts with a single cat. In our first episode of Underfoot , we explore how one block in Flatbush reveals a much larger problem facing New York City: a hidden cat crisis fueled by the larger affordability crisis, underfunded shelters, and limited access to veterinary care. Featuring stories of neighborhood colony caretakers and the cats they care for, th...

Underfoot   is a new podcast about the hidden cat crisis in NYC and what we can do to solve it. In this podcast, we go beyond rescue stories to reveal the systems that created this problem in the first place, and ask the question: What would it take to build a city where no cat is left behind? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...