With New Leadership, Hope For Eleanor Sonsini Shelter

The cats have been moving out of the shelter but, so far, the dogs are in great need of homes.  

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the promise of new leadership, the Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter's future is no longer looking as grim.

About a week after announcing that the facility will close its doors for good, the board of directors has decided to hand leadership over to the shelter's manager Noelle Howland.  

Howland will be continuing the shelter's mission under a different name and is in search of a new building to properly serve the dogs and cats. This is imperative because the current facility cannot meet the animals' needs.

The opportunity is a dream come true, said Howland, as she has worked with animals for years and has always wanted to open her own shelter.

"I'm happy that I can continue this, I'm really honored that they would even let me do this because an average person wouldn't just be offered to take on something like this," she said. "I'm definitely grateful and I'm happy with the amount of support I've gotten."

Howland launched a GoFundMe campaign to save the shelter soon after the closing was announced. It began with a goal of $30,000 and after surpassing that goal, now aims to raise $100,000. It was about halfway there on Monday. The funds will be used to establish a new non-profit.

The shelter will close to the public at the end of August, so Howland's main priority is to find a new location for all its current residents.  

There are about seven dogs and 11 cats currently at the facility. An abundance of applications have come in for cats so the staff has high hopes that they will all find homes but the dogs have seen fewer interested adopters.

The shelter had been the city pound since the 1980s but operations were transferred in 2005 to the nonprofit Friends of Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter Inc. It had been named for the local animal rights activist and longtime animal control officer who died in 1994 at age 80. 

In 2018, the city pulled its contract to take stray animals to Sonsini and the nonprofit was ordered to leave the municipal-owned building in Downing Industrial Business Park.

The board cited dwindling donations and an insufficient facility as reasons for the decision to close.  Finding a new building is crucial, as the location on Crane Avenue was intended to be temporary.

Howland explained that space is a main need. The shelter needs more room for outdoor and indoor kennels, a separate space for the cats that is not located in the office, and a meet-and-greet space. She is open to relocating to a nearby community if the opportunity arises.

Long term, she is confident that collaboration with the community and grant opportunities will support the shelter's livelihood.

Howland believes that the successful fundraising campaign along with her good work ethic and passion for animals led to the board's decision to hand over leadership. She owns a dog walking business on the side and has worked at a doggie day-care.

"I didn't want to cause any issues. I didn't want to get any bad name with them," she said. "And they knew that. They knew I was doing it out of my passion for these animals."

Monetary and supply donations are always appreciated. If a new building is not found by the end of the month, everything will be in storage until it is moved into the shelter's next location.

Information on available animals can be found here.

Social Service Organizations Highlight Challenges, Successes at Poverty Talk

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
08:04AM / Sunday, April 05, 2026

Dr. Jennifer Michaels of the Brien Center demonstrates how to use Narcan. Easy access to the drug has cut overdose deaths in the county by nearly half. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Recent actions at the federal level are making it harder for people to climb out of poverty.

Brad Gordon, executive director of Upside413, said he felt like he was doing a disservice by not recognizing national challenges and how they draw a direct line from choices being made by the Trump administration and the challenges the United States is facing. 

"They more generally impact people's ability to work their way out of poverty, and that's really, that's really the overarching dynamic," he said. 

"Poverty is incredibly corrosive, and it impacts all the topics that we'll talk about today." 

His comments came during a conversation on poverty hosted by Berkshire Community Action Council. Eight local service agency leaders detailed how they are supporting people during the current housing and affordability crisis, and the Berkshire state delegation spoke to their own efforts.

The event held on March 27 at the Berkshire Athenaeum included a working lunch and encouraged public feedback. 

"All of this information that we're going to gather today from both you and the panelists is going to drive our next three-year strategic plan," explained Deborah Leonczyk, BCAC's executive director. 

The conversation ranged from health care and housing production to financial literacy and child care.  Participating agencies included Upside 413, The Brien Center, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, MassHire Berkshire Career Center, Berkshire Regional Transit Authority, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Child Care of the Berkshires. 

The federal choices Gordon spoke about included allocating $140 billion for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, investing $38 billion to convert warehouses into detention centers, cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, a proposed 50 percent increase in the defense budget, and cutting federal funding for supportive housing programs. 

Gordon pointed to past comments about how the region can't build its way out of the housing crisis because of money. He withdrew that statement, explaining, "You know what? That's bullshit, actually."

"I'm going to be honest with you, that is absolute bullshit. I have just observed over the last year or so how we're spending our money and the amount of money that we're spending on the federal side, and I'm no longer saying in good conscience that we can't build our way out of this," he said. 

Upside 413 provided a "Housing Demand in Western Massachusetts" report that was done in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Donahue Institute of Economic and Public Policy Research. It states that around 23,400 units are needed to meet current housing demand in Western Mass; 1,900 in Berkshire County in 2025.