But in my opinion, they're better off at the shelter where they can be seen by people who are looking for a pet rather than having to notify the foster parent and make arrangements to go to their homes.
True. And in the case of our local humane society that has regular hours daily when they are open to the public, this would be a BIG concideration. But our little shelter building is manned 100 % by volunteers and people cannot just go there to "look". They need to set up an appointment with an available volunteer (same as if it were a foster home).
Of course, those potential adopters might still miss out on a cat that is in a foster home because that cat was not at the shelter at that particular time.
An important thing to note is that our organization's founder does not want kittens under one year old in the shelter building. So they are to be fostered SOMEWHERE (if not here) until that time.



And for all those keeping track of this thread, the fosters in reality have 2 rooms. If you happened to see the screen door we built on our vacation, it blocks the stairway to the 3rd floor. There are 2 rooms on the 3rd floor. This gives me the option of keeping 2 sets of fosters separated in one room each or one set of fosters in the two rooms together. So I will use that space with the utmost of efficiency according to the cat's needs.