Withering heat is more common, but getting AC is still a struggle in public housing
Withering heat is more common, but getting AC is still a struggle in public housing
As heat waves get worse, air conditioning has come to feel like a must-have even in parts of the U.S. that historically haven't needed it. Those who live in public housing are especially vulnerable to the heat — they're not just low-income, but also disproportionately older, people of color, chronically ill and often living in hotter neighborhoods that lack shade from tree cover. And yet even as extreme heat becomes more common, it remains a struggle for many tenants to get AC.
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Much public housing is decades old, built before central air was widely available, and it would be incredibly expensive to add it now. Many tenants get an allowance for utilities that includes heat, but federal rules actually specify that it not cover air conditioning. Residents are allowed to get their own AC units, but Deborah Thrope, of the National Housing Law Project, says most must pay for it and the monthly bills themselves.
AC doesn't have to mean central air. Window units and mini split systems exist.
That’s not the issue though. The issue is that the low-income tenants have to pay for the portable units themselves. On top of that, federal subsidies for some reason do not cover air conditioning.
I think we're in agreement. What I was trying to get at was that the high cost of retrofitting buildings with central air shouldn't be an excuse to leave those people without air conditioning.