{"id":32612,"date":"2023-07-30T16:44:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T22:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/record-heat-waves-illuminate-plight-of-poorest-americans\/"},"modified":"2023-07-30T22:44:15","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T22:44:15","slug":"record-heat-waves-illuminate-plight-of-poorest-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/record-heat-waves-illuminate-plight-of-poorest-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Record heat waves illuminate plight of poorest Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ben
Ben Gallegos sits on the porch of his family's home in the Globeville neighborhood with his dog, Coca Smiles, as the daytime high temperature soars toward triple digits, Thursday, July 27, 2023, in north Denver. David Zalubowski\/The Associated Press<\/span>David Zalubowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

DENVER \u2013 As Denver neared triple-digit temperatures, Ben Gallegos sat shirtless on his porch swatting flies off his legs and spritzing himself with a misting fan to try to get through the heat. Gallegos, like many in the nation\u2019s poorest neighborhoods, doesn\u2019t have air conditioning.<\/p>\n

The 68-year-old covers his windows with mattress foam to insulate against the heat and sleeps in the concrete basement. He knows high temperatures can cause heat stroke and death, and his lung condition makes him more susceptible. But the retired brick layer, who survives on about $1,000 a month, says air conditioning is out of reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake me about 12 years to save up for something like that,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s hard to breath, I\u2019ll get down to emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

As climate change fans hotter and longer heat waves, breaking record temperatures across the U.S. and leaving dozens dead, the poorest Americans suffer the hottest days with the fewest defenses. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival.<\/p>\n

As Phoenix weathered its 27th consecutive day above 110 degrees (43 Celsius) Wednesday, the nine who died indoors didn\u2019t have functioning air conditioning, or it was turned off. Last year, all 86 heat-related deaths indoors were in uncooled environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo explain it fairly simply: Heat kills,\u201d said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor who researches heat and health. \u201cOnce the heat wave starts, mortality starts in about 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the poorest and people of color, from Kansas City to Detroit to New York City and beyond, who are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. metro areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe temperature differences \u2026 between lower-income neighborhoods, neighborhoods of color and their wealthier, whiter counterparts have pretty severe consequences,\u201d said Cate Mingoya-LaFortune of Groundwork USA, an environmental justice organization. \u201cThere are these really big consequences like death. \u2026 But there\u2019s also ambient misery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some have window units that can offer respite, but \u201cin the dead of heat, it don\u2019t do nothing,\u201d said Melody Clark, who stopped Friday to get food at a Kansas City, Kansas, nonprofit as temperatures soared to 101. When the central air conditioning at her rental house broke, her landlord installed a window unit. But it doesn\u2019t do much during the day.<\/p>\n

So the 45-year-old wets her hair, cooks outside on a propane grill and keeps the lights off indoors. At night she flips the box unit on, hauling her bed into the room where it\u2019s located to sleep.<\/p>\n

As far as her two teenagers, she said: \u201cThey aren\u2019t little bitty. We aren\u2019t dying in the heat. \u2026 They don\u2019t complain.\u201d<\/p>\n

While billions in federal funding have been allocated to subsidize utility costs and the installation of cooling systems, experts say they often only support a fraction of the most vulnerable families and some still require prohibitive upfront costs. Installing a centralized heat pump system for heating and cooling can easily reach $25,000.<\/p>\n

\"Lucy
Lucy Molina sits in her living room in Commerce City, Colorado,, on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Without central air conditioning, the single mother's home in one of the Denver metro's poorest areas has reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius), she said. Thomas Peipert\/The Associated Press<\/span>Thomas Peipert<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

President Joe Biden announced steps on Thursday to defend against extreme heat, highlighting the expansion of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which funnels money through states to help poorer households pay utility bills.<\/p>\n

While the program is critical, said Michelle Graff, who studies the subsidy at Cleveland State University, only about 16% of the nation\u2019s eligible population is actually reached. Nearly half states don\u2019t offer the federal dollars for summer cooling.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo people are engaging in coping mechanisms, like they\u2019re turning on their air conditioners later and leaving their homes hotter,\u201d Graff said.<\/p>\n

As temperatures rise, so does the cost of cooling. And temperatures are already hotter in America\u2019s low-income neighborhoods. Researchers at the University of San Diego analyzed 1,056 counties and in over 70%, the poorest areas and those with higher Black, Hispanic and Asian populations were significantly hotter. That\u2019s in part because those neighborhoods lack tree coverage.<\/p>\n

At noon on Friday, Katrice Sullivan sat on the porch of her rented house on Detroit\u2019s westside. It was hot and muggy, but even steamier inside the house. Even if she had air conditioning, Sullivan said she\u2019d choose her moments to run it to keep her electricity bill down.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old factory worker sometimes sits in her car with the air conditioner running. \u201cSome people here spend every dollar for food, so air conditioning is something they can\u2019t afford,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Amanda
Amanda Morian washes dishes in her home in Denver's Globeville neighborhood on Monday, July 24, 2023. Morian, who has a 13-week-old baby susceptible to hot weather, is desperate to keep the house cool. She bought thermal curtains, ceiling fans and runs a window unit. Thomas Peipert\/The Associated Press<\/span>Thomas Peipert<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In the federal Inflation Reduction Act, billions were set aside for tax credits and rebates to help families install energy-efficient cooling systems, but some of those are yet to be available. Rebates are the kind of state and federal point-of-sale discounts that Amanda Morian has looked into for her 640-square-foot home.<\/p>\n

Morian, who has a 13-week-old baby susceptible to hot weather, is desperate to keep her house in Denver\u2019s Globeville suburb cool. She got estimates from four different companies for installing a cooling system, but every project was between $20,000 and $25,000, she said. Even with subsidies she can\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n

Instead, she bought thermal curtains, ceiling fans and runs a window unit. At night she tries to do skin-to-skin touch to regulate the baby\u2019s body temperature.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those are just to take the edge off, it\u2019s not enough to actually make it cool. It\u2019s enough to keep us from dying,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Kansas, and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a retired brick layer who survives on about $1,000 a month, air conditioning is out of reach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32612"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}