When I was travelling around the country a few years ago, my RV and I stayed in quite a few parking lots.  Stores, malls, casinos and hospitals were all prime, and free and relatively safe, places to park for the night.  And I ran across a phenonenum which was much more common than I would have ever thought.

Cats.  Most of the parking lots which were big enough to have a reasonably quiet area had cats.  Park there and very often a cat would appear, tentative, hesitant, and still remarkably persistent.  The cat was always quite feral, not interested in human contact, wanted food.  And over the course of the evening at least one person, sometimes 2 or three, would show up and leave dry food.  And several cats would magically appear.

Apparently that’s a common practice.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-36112353