HOUSTON – The city of Houston's Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care provides a vital service by making sure stray animals don't become a nuisance, a health concern or a danger. Yet a Local 2 investigation discovered tens of thousands of calls to BARC go unanswered every year. These calls for help range from aggressive strays to animal bites.
BARC receives between 40,000 and 50,000 calls a year from the public. City records show an average of 28,000 of those calls a year go unanswered. By BARC officials own estimation, animal control officers are only able to respond to a quarter of the calls received each year.
Residents of neighborhoods on Houston's East End said they have been complaining to the city for years about a growing stray dog population.
"A lot of people are angry that nothing seems to be done," said East End resident Lori Perez.
Residents said aggressive stray dogs have made it difficult to walk neighborhood streets or city parks. Local 2 spotted 20 stray dogs in a two-hour period spent driving through East End neighborhoods.
"There's dogs everywhere," said Miriam Rincon.
"I got attacked by a dog on my bicycle," said Victor Tamez. "We want the city to do their part."
Residents also said the principal of De Zavala Elementary School on Avenue H has had to chase stray dogs off campus.
"These dogs are actually coming up to the children and grabbing food out of their hand and that's dangerous," said Perez.
Unanswered calls aren't the only problem Local 2 found. City records show BARC officers are supposed to respond to Priority 1 calls within one hour. These calls involve "a person in danger or at risk or bite case." A review of city records show BARC officers take an average of five hours and 36 minutes to respond to these emergency calls.
When it comes to bite investigations it is taking the city an average of six hours and 28 minutes to respond. Calls involving aggressive strays have an average response time of six days.
"What do you say to the people who have those emergency cases but still wait for hours?" asked Local 2 Investigator Robert Arnold.
"We'll get there as fast as we can, given the resources that we have," said BARC Director Greg Damianoff.
Damianoff said decades of underfunding created the problem. Damianoff said as it stands now there are only eight to nine animal control officers a day handling thousands of calls across the city.
"It's all resources and what we can pull off with the groups we have," said Damianoff.
A lack of resources does not fully explain unanswered calls and lengthy response times. Local 2 Investigates followed some BARC officers during their shifts. Local 2 saw some officers working diligently, while other officers seemed to hardly work at all.
Our hidden cameras spotted some BARC officers taking two lunch breaks, stopping at a check-cashing store, hanging out in parking lots, at city gas pumps and on side streets. In these cases the BARC officers spent more time on these activities then answering the public's calls for help.
Damianoff: "I wouldn't expect anyone as a taxpayer of the city to be happy with that."
Arnold: "Do you think it hurts your cause when you try to say, 'We need more, we need more?'"
Damianoff.: "Oh God yeah, yeah. Anytime anybody does something stupid, all the things that I've been working on and all the things the people that work for me have been working on are eroded."
Arnold: "Do you think the employees that we mentioned failed?"
Damianoff: "Yeah, I do, I do. There's a high probability they won't be working here anymore."
Damianoff said BARC vehicles are equipped with tracking devices but that he service needed to operate the system was "defunded." Damianoff said supervisors have the capability to spot-check an employee's whereabouts, but many times are too busy prioritizing and dispatching the thousands of calls coming into the bureau.
However, Damianoff said changes are on the way for BARC.
First, the city gave BARC an additional $2.9 million in funding to purchase new equipment and hire more officers. Damianoff said this will allow BARC to respond to 38-40 percent of the calls received as opposed to 25 percent. Some of the new equipment being purchased, include laptops with GPS tracking, will better monitor employee movements.
Second, there has been a major philosophy shift at BARC. Damianoff said the city is putting more effort into prevention and community outreach to promote responsible pet ownership.
"You can't just pick them up and put them down, there's too many," said Damianoff, in reference to Houston's stray animal population.
Through private partnerships the city launched Healthy Pets, Healthy Streets. The program spend one month in an area with a high volume of stray animals. A mobile clinic is first sent to offer free spay/neuter procedures, pet microchips, vaccinations, flea and tick medicine and city licenses. After that part of the program is complete, then BARC officers try to round up as many strays as possible.
Damianoff said the program was recently started in the East End neighborhoods Local 2 visited.
On Nov. 3 the city also announced the grand opening of the first low-cost spay and neuter clinic in the state.
"Everybody understands if we keep neglecting this it's going to become a blight," said Damianoff. "If you see a loose dog on the streets, it diminishes the value of things. I don't want to be that city."
See lists of Activity Response Times Below: