FACTS ABOUT CAT TOWN

History

Cat Town was founded in 2011, when 42% of cats were being euthanized because the shelter’s lack of resources left cats scared, stressed, sick, and senior cats without options. Cat Town was created as a lifeline for these cats, who get systematically passed over by rescue organizations.

We began as a small foster organization and today, fostering is still at the core of Cat Town’s work. After we opened America’s first cat cafe in 2014, our impact skyrocketed, helping reduce the euthanasia rate for Oakland’s shelter cats by 70%.

Why We’re Unique

Our focus on the shelter’s most vulnerable cats sets us apart from other rescues, whose main focus tend to be on high volume adoptions for young, healthy, confident animals. We help overlooked cats get adopted. Cat Town is also unique in that we work closely with the team at Oakland Animal Services, the city shelter, to identify the cats who most need our help.

General Facts

• Cat Town focuses on helping sick, senior, stressed, and shy cats — cats who find it difficult to thrive in the shelter environment and were in need of a safe space where they could show their true personalities.

• Founded in 2011, our organization has now been in operation for 14 years.

• We typically have 40 to 60 foster cats in our care at any time.

• Our cage-free Adoption Center at Cat Town has been in operation since October, 2014. There are typically anywhere between 20 and 40 cats living there.

• Our Pet Food Express location has helped 133 kittens (and counting!) to make extra room at the shelter for older cats who need more time.

• In spite of our focus on at-risk shelter cats, we have about one adoption every day. We’ve helped more than 4,300 cats, including 4,250 adoptions.

• Cat Town consistently does an excellent job of saving lives. In spite of supporting senior, sick, and injured cats in large numbers, our lifesaving rate was 98.5% in 2024.

• In that same 14 years, we’ve helped reduce the euthanasia rate in Oakland’s shelter by 70%.

• We’ve supported a 241% surge in medical cases since 2020, because those were the cats who needed Cat Town.

• In 2024, 41% of the cats we took in from the city shelter required veterinary care over and above routine shelter treatments.

• Veterinary shortages, economic stressors, and other causes we can’t control have led to rising medical costs, with some procedures costing 50% more than they would have just two years ago.

Dollars at work

It takes more than big hearts to do this work. Here’s what the funds you raise can provide:

$10 — Helps shy cats like Tony overcome their fear of people with a pack of treats
$25 — Gives a blind cat, like Elizabeth Swann, special litter so they can find their litter box
$35 — Delivers a starter pack of supplies to a foster cat or kitten
$70 — Comforts a senior cat like Melina with a warm bed, toys, and treats
$80 — Purchases chlorine-free bleach for one week of laundry for all the cats at the Adoption Center
$100 — Buys a case of prescription food for cats with special dietary needs, like Goji
$250 — Provides a month of foster cat supplies to cats like Pip & Ollie
$280 — Socialize older kittens, like Mars & Pluto, so they can find a home
$550 — Cares for one Forgotten Kitten, like Flash or Sonic, throughout their entire stay with Cat Town
$560 — Treats a litter of kittens with ringworm, like Deer, Zebra, Gazelle, and Lamb
$600 — Covers the medical lab work for a senior cat, like Leia
$1,800 — Provide a discounted dental surgery to fix a painful mouth for cats like Henry
$2,000 — saves a cat in critical condition, like Arroyo, who needed an emergency blood transfusion to recover from an autoimmune reaction to his kitten vaccines