people, unlike dogs, have some common sense and reasoning. they should be able to help themselves, not to mention that in the worst cases helping people is the job of the governmet, i already pay my taxes so those thieves should be able to do something about poverty.a lot of poor people need more help then street dogs....
ella, rabies is not so big in DR. sure, there are cases but most of infections worldwide happen in india, actually. DR has very little wildlife so rabies does not spread fast (generally rats and mice do not suffer from rabies, btw). in a case of the outbreak the response of dominican health department is to kill all animals running free in the area where infection happened. cruel but tends to work.
there is an oral vaccine far rabies available so it is possible to protect street animals without injecting them (not an easy task).