Months after South Florida baked through a record-breaking summer marked by relentless heat advisories, soaring energy bills, and indoor temperatures that became unbearable for thousands, a growing body of research is making one thing clear: for people living in older, under-resourced affordable housing, extreme heat is not just uncomfortable; it\u2019s dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtreme heat is the deadliest climate impact and is colliding with the nation\u2019s long-standing shortage in safe, affordable housing for people with the lowest incomes,\u201d said Zoe Middleton, a co-author of the \u201cColliding Crises<\/a>\u201d report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)<\/a> and associate director for climate resilience at UCS.<\/p>\n In Miami and across the country, that collision is playing out inside aging, poorly insulated apartments where renters on tight budgets struggle to stay cool. For Ashon Nesbitt, CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition<\/a>, the link is direct.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you combine an aging housing stock with rising temperatures and higher energy costs, it\u2019s clear we have to address energy efficiency and resilience together, especially for low- and moderate-income households,\u201d Nesbitt said.<\/p>\n A hot state\u00a0<\/p>\n The UCS report examined nearly 8 million homes in public housing, project-based subsidized, manufactured, and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit properties, analyzing National Weather Service heat alerts during \u201cDanger Season,\u201d between May and October 2024. Most residents in the nation\u2019s affordable housing experienced at least seven days of heat alerts; nearly half faced 21 or more.<\/p>\n Florida ranks among the states with the largest number of affordable homes exposed to one or more weeks of heat alerts, along with Texas, New York, California, and Ohio.\u00a0<\/p>\n Middleton said Florida stands out because the baseline is already high and climbing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe extreme heat is growing; we\u2019re dealing with an increase in temperature, but not an increase in investment to manage that temperature, particularly in a place like Miami, where the rent is really high,\u201d she said. \u201cThat vulnerability of needing to run your AC on top of paying your rent makes it pop in terms of people having to make really difficult choices.\u201d<\/p>\n The analysis also found that people of color face disproportionate exposure to dangerous heat. Households headed by a person of color make up about half of public and project-based housing units exposed to one week of heat alerts, and two-thirds of those that endured three or more weeks. Florida was among those in the heat-alert-exposure category with the largest percentages of households in public or project-based housing led by a person of color.<\/p>\n Miami-Dade\u2019s burden<\/p>\n For many Miami-Dade residents, heat stress is a daily reality. This past summer, the City of Miami\u2019s Office of Resilience and Sustainability partnered with The Miami Foundation and Catalyst Miami on a implementing heat sensors<\/a> that tracked indoor and outdoor temperatures<\/a> in about 70 households. The final report is pending.<\/p>\n Christopher Rice, who lives in an older building and relies on a window air conditioner, said the unit simply can\u2019t keep up.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m in a one-bedroom. I have an AC unit. These ACs are not really doing the thing. The living room and the kitchen are fine, but the bedroom is the one that’s a little warm, so I don’t really rest at night, and I have to get a fan, and then I really can’t take the fan because it hurts my bones,\u201d Rice said in a previous interview with The Miami Times.<\/p>\n The financial strain compounds the discomfort.<\/p>\n \u201cMy bills do go up because I have to constantly burn my AC,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s hard when you’re living on a fixed income and then you have your light bill running you almost to $200 a month.\u201d<\/p>\n