Enclosure for animal houses belonging to sentimental person (5)
I believe the answer is:
softy
'sentimental person' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'enclosure for animal houses belonging to' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'belonging to' could be 'of' ('of' can mean 'belonging to' or 'owned by') and 'of' is found within the answer.
'enclosure' could be 'sty' (sty is a kind of enclosure) and 'sty' is found in the remaining letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for softy that I've seen before include "Weak person" , "Gentle sort" , "Sentimental person" .)