A dying woman left a heartwarming note to her cat’s future owner.

We are sharing this story to celebrate Adopt-a-Cat Month.

Tod Perry
06.10.19
via Jerry Butler / Facebook

Every June, the American Humane Society celebrates Adopt-A-Cat Month because it's the time of year when the most kittens are born, and sadly, the highest number find their way to shelters.

The American Humane Society is encouraging people to adopt shelter cats by asking cat owners to share their favorite feline stories, so we're sharing ours.

In May of 2015, a dying woman knew that she would have to give her cat up to a shelter when she passed, because her son's rental didn't allow pets. After she passed, the son surrendered the five-year-old orange cat named Susie to the Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center in Derwood, Maryland, with a note from the cat's later owner.

In the heartbreaking letter, the former owner detailed the quiet life they lived together and told the future owner that Susie was shy, but eventually became a loving companion.


via Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center


via Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center

Here's the letter in full:

Dear friend

Thank you for adopting my friend, Susie. She was one of three cats in a litter.

November 15, 2010, is her approximate birthday. She moved in with me on December 1, 2010.

Until I felt sure she knew where her home was, I kept her in the house.

After she was left out, she disappeared for four days. I thought I would never see her again. On the fourth night we had an unusually loud thunderstorm. There was no rain, just noise.

That morning when I went out to call her, I did not expect to see her, but she came a running. She came in the house with me and has not been willing to go out again unless I go with her.

She became an indoor cat.

Susie is afraid of everyone and everything. It took her six to eight months to realise I am her friend. I have tried for a long time to get her to go outside. She won't do it unless I go with her.

Perhaps if I could go for walks with her she would get used to going outside but I am too unstable to leave my front porch. She will go on the porch as long as I go with her. The best she will do is walk along the garden next to the front porch.

I believe she would follow me if I could go for a walk.

It would be nice if she would make friends with our dog. They get along together but Susie keeps some distance from the dog. I never worry about them when I leave them in the house together.

Susie is unusual but I enjoy her company. She is a good snuggler but she likes to be the boss. She enjoys being petted. She spends much of her time on my bed but always seems to know where I am.

I hope you enjoy Susie as much as I have.

When Susie arrived at the shelter, she was shy and hid from her caretakers. Knowing that it would be tough to find a home for the cat, the shelter made the letter public.

"I'm sure that when she wrote it, she wrote it just to the intent of getting it to the adopter," said Katherine Zenzano, community outreach coordinator of Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center, said according to ABC News. "But we realized Susie was wasn't going anywhere. Some cats are really great at selling themselves and Susie wasn't selling herself."

"If this letter can in any way help Susie, or any other cats in the same situation, we are happy to get it out there because we think it can touch a lot of people," she continued.

Fifty-five days later, a woman who says she has experience with shy cats adopted Susie. "She just felt she had the ability to work with Susie and wanted to give her the home that she needed," Zenzano, told WTOP.


via Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center


Click here to learn more about Adopt-A-Cat Month.

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"To me, this building was just a gift."

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Brian Olesen never imagined he would end up homeless.

The former U.S. Air Force medic had led a full and active life, complete with a long career in the medical field, a 20-year marriage, and a love of anything aquatic. But after hip surgery and chronic back pain left him disabled in 2013, he lost his ability to work. Due to changes in eligibility requirements, he couldn't qualify for federal veteran housing programs. His back issues were difficult to prove medically, so he didn't qualify for disability. Though he'd worked his whole life, having no income for five years took its toll. He got evicted from a couple of apartments and found himself living on the streets.

But in 2018, two things completely turned Olesen's life around. He was able to both qualify for disability and to move into an affordable housing community in Miami's Goulds neighborhood called Karis Village.

When people think of affordable housing, they don't usually picture a place like Karis Village. The 88-unit development is brand new, and built with an attention to design that is not always expected for developments that serve as home to people on limited incomes. The apartments have tile floors, marble countertops, and all new appliances and furniture, and the grounds are beautiful and well-kept, with a playground and common areas for residents to gather.

Brian Olesen in his kitchen at Karis VillageCapital One

Karis Village isn't just a housing development; it's a home and a community. Half of the units are set aside for veterans who have experienced homelessness, like Olesen. The other half are largely occupied by single-parent families.

"To me, this building was just a gift," says Olesen. "All of the different parties that got together to put this building together… making half the building available to veterans. We've got no place to go."

Addressing veteran homelessness was one of the goals of Karis Village, which was built through a partnership that included Carrfour Supportive Housing — a mission-driven, not-for-profit affordable housing organization in southern Florida — and Capital One's Community Finance team. More than just an affordable place to live, the community has full-time staff on hand to help coordinate services—from addiction recovery programs to transportation options to job search and placement. Also included are peer counselors who provide emotional and psychological support for residents.

Karis Village, an affordable housing community in Miami, Florida.Capital One

Carrfour President and CEO Stephanie Berman says the core function of the services team on site is to build a supportive community.

"Often when you think of folks leaving homelessness and coming into housing, you think of shelters or some kind of traditional housing," she says. "You don't really think about a community, and that's really what we build and what we operate. What we're really striving to create is community. We find that our families thrive when you create a sense of community."

The intention to create a supportive community at Karis Village was a priority from the get go. Fabian Ramirez, a Capital Officer on Capital One's Community Finance team, says the bank did a listening tour in southern Florida to explore community development and affordable housing options in the area and to hear what was most needed. After deciding to partner with Carrfour, the bank provided not only an $8 million construction loan and a $25 million low income housing tax credit (LIHTC) investment to help build Karis Village, but it also kicked in a $250,000 social purpose grant to help fund the social support services that would be put in place for residents.

"It's not just all about providing the brick and mortar," says Ramirez. "It's about being able to contribute to the sustainability of the development and of the lives of the people who move into the building."


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Olesen says he and his fellow residents benefit greatly from the network of support services offered in the building. He says a counselor comes to meet with him once a month, sometimes right in his apartment. He also gets help maintaining a connection with the Veteran Affairs office. Other services include social workers and counselors for drug addiction and alcoholism.

Olesen loves being around other veterans, and he says hearing the sound of children playing keeps the community lively. He says anywhere else he could afford to live on disability wouldn't be nearly as nice and would likely involve shared kitchens and bathrooms and neighborhoods you wouldn't want to go out in at night.

If it weren't for Karis Village, Olesen says he doesn't know where he would be today: "I had nowhere to go and this is a safe, beautiful place to spend my retirement."

"I don't think they could have done a much better job of putting this place together and supplying us with what we need," he says. "I have so much appreciation for the ability to have a place to live. And then you add to that that it's beautiful and completely furnished and you didn't need to bring anything—I don't know what more you could ask for."

Karis Village and another development for veterans built the same year enabled the neighborhood of Goulds to meet the requirements set forth by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to declare an end to veteran homelessness in the area.

Ending veteran homelessness altogether is a complex task, but communities like Karis Village show how it can be done—and done well. When government agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporate funding programs come together to solve big problems, big solutions can be built and maintained.

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