Our Sanctuary
A home, first and always
DharmaCats is a permanent sanctuary built around a simple idea: cats deserve lasting safety — including the old ones, the sick ones, the shy ones, the ones who need medicine every day, and the ones whose lives have been complicated.
The cats who live here are home. They are not available for adoption. This is where they live, and they stay.
To protect the care, space, and steadiness of the cats already here, DharmaCats is not currently accepting new cats. Where we can, we also help other people caring for cats and point people toward resources when we cannot help directly.
An ordinary afternoon: Fiona and Morty, asleep on the couch together.
The meaning of sanctuary
What it means to be home
Sanctuary is knowing you are safe enough to rest, cared for as yourself, and allowed to stay for all your days.
Loved as you are
Nobody here has to be useful, easy, outgoing, or charming to belong. Every cat is allowed to be exactly who they are.
Known and cared for
Care means knowing the little things: who needs quiet, who wants company, who eats where, who loves a particular bed, and who would really prefer that everyone leave them alone for a while.
Here for all your days
Care doesn't end because a cat grows old, becomes ill, needs more help, or simply changes with time. Home is still home.
Room to simply be
Sometimes sanctuary is companionship. Sometimes it's solitude. Sometimes it's a warm room, a full belly, a familiar voice, and a patch of sunlight where nobody needs anything from you.
Mission & vision
What we’re building
DharmaCats is an Arizona nonprofit providing lifelong sanctuary and compassionate care for abandoned, at-risk, and special-needs cats, while sharing what we learn about caring for them well.
We imagine a world where complicated care does not make a life disposable — and where sanctuary means something simple: safety, dignity, belonging, and someone who stays.
The Sanctuary Keeper
The woman who keeps the shrine
Sanctuary is not something that was built once and finished. It is kept — every ordinary day.
Food, medicine, litter, laundry, cleaning, vet visits. Watching who ate. Noticing who didn’t. Knowing who wants company and who needs to be left alone. Making sure there is another ordinary tomorrow.
The Sanctuary Keeper is whoever decides that a small, vulnerable life will be safe with them. Here, that is Malia. Her story — why she makes safe places, and what sanctuary means to her — will be told in her own words, here, before long.
The cats who shaped the work
Before there was DharmaCats Sanctuary, there were three girls: Teja, Vayu, and Akasha. Loving them shaped the understanding of sanctuary that became this place.
Visit Teja, Vayu, and Akasha →