Kevin Riordan: N.J. animal shelter struggling

When the Almost Home Animal Shelter opened in 2006, it was supposed to be temporary.

But the problem of unwanted, abandoned, or abused pets endures. So does the privately run shelter in Pennsauken, which lately finds itself struggling as cases and costs rise, and donations and adoptions decline.

The washer and the dryer recently broke down, too.

"We're doing the best we can, but we're in danger of closing. Very shortly," executive director Nancy Welsh says amid a cacophony of canine, feline, and telephone sounds, none of which cease during my visit Monday.

"We used to take in 600 animals a year. Now we take in 1,200, mostly dogs and cats," says Welsh, 52. "We used to do 600 adoptions a year, but those are down, too. It's the economy."

Almost Home collects a total of $172,000 annually in fees from Pennsauken and five other Camden County towns where it provides animal-control services, including investigating complaints of cruelty.

Thanks to people in crisis, South Jersey is loaded with animals in crisis.

"We took in two alligators that were living in a high-rise in Collingswood," Welsh says. Almost Home placed them in a zoo; most of the guinea pigs that were found abandoned en masse in Cooper River Park have gotten new lodgings, too.

Almost Home got its start five years ago, after the private West Jersey Animal Shelter in Pennsauken closed and the township reached out to Welsh, a veterinary technician, animal control officer, and lifelong animal lover from Collingswood.

The idea was to have the temporary shelter operate for about 18 months while a consortium of towns, working with Camden County, collectively came up with a permanent arrangement.

The county was interested in expanding its animal shelter at the Lakeland complex in Blackwood, with municipalities, which state law requires provide for animal welfare, ultimately picking up operating costs.

Then the Great Recession hit, the county began rethinking the approach, and Welsh found herself running not a short-term service but an ongoing business. "She's done a wonderful job," Township Administrator Edward Grochowski says.

When I ask Welsh for specifics about the falloff in donations and upturn in costs, she's not immediately sure of the figures. "I should be writing grants, but instead I'm out back scooping poop," she says.

But just getting a dog adoption-ready, Welsh notes, typically means $150 worth of spaying or neutering, vaccinations, and deworming. Almost Home pays for it all.