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Mother of seven asks council for help keeping five service animals, links enforcement to family trauma
Summary
In a charged public comment, Paula Rollins described struggles as a single mother of seven with five qualified service animals, said she faces animal-control actions and truancy enforcement, and urged help from the city.
Paula Rollins told Denver City Council on Jan. 13 that she is a single mother of seven with five service animals and that she is facing enforcement actions that threaten her ability to care for children with disabilities.
Rollins said she provided paperwork and doctors’ notes to support the animals’ status, but that animal-control visits and tickets had followed. She described losing prior animals to theft and poisoning, paying about $800 to keep an animal in a shelter and said one of her children has a traumatic brain injury and others have disabilities that make the animals necessary for parenting and daily care.
Rollins also described personal trauma and criminal incidents she attributed to people using drugs, and said those experiences have affected her children’s schooling and well-being. "I'm a single mom and I'm asking for help constantly," she told council members in an emotional appeal. She asked for assistance to keep her service animals so her children can attend school and receive necessary care.
Rollins’s remarks were made during the general public-comment period; council members did not respond during the session and no formal referral or action was recorded in the Jan. 13 public-comment meeting.
