Here is my tiny Xmas miracle -- we have a bunch of feral cats in this neighborhood. This pretty tortoiseshell momma cat left five kittens in our backyard in 2012 and I bottle fed them etc. One of our indoor cats is from this inbred lot. Then later that year the next door neighbor took momma cat to be TNR'ed and she survived.
Fast forward to this year and the neighbors moved away. They were feeding her and another feral cat buddy, would leave their garage door open a bit in cold weather etc. Well, since they left, I have been feeding momma cat and over time she has spent more time in our backyard, but still wanted nothing to do with anything we set up for her (during Harvey I set out a large carrier with a tarp over it but she preferred the rain).
Tonight she started using the same carrier to chill in, right next to the back door. Got a towel in there and some fabric over the vents to limit the wind. I opened the door to take out some trash and she crawled out of it like it had been her home all along. I'm so happy
tl;dr feed animals and they will stick around