ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a brief primer about homelessness and animal companionship for clinicians. However, one mental health experience which traverses all categorical boundaries is trauma, which is endemic to homelessness. Treating trauma is now understood to be critical to the mental health care of the homeless population, to address distress and affect the individual’s ability to cope with the obstacles of exiting homelessness. Due to the important role companion animals play in the lives of people experiencing homelessness, the loss of an animal might result in severe grief. In addition to potential severe reactions to pet loss, there are other drawbacks of animal guardianship for people experiencing homelessness. Despite the logic of focusing on securing shelter first, lack of housing should not preclude people experiencing homelessness from working through pet loss grief.
