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As Phoenix temperatures climb to triple digits, most residents prefer to stay inside with the air-conditioning. But it’s not that simple for everyone.
The Valley’s steadily growing homeless population struggles with the heat, too, and excessive temperatures prove challenging for this already challenged group. Organizations such as Circle the City are stepping up to help offer them some respite.
Circle the City offers
free medical care to the Valley’s growing homeless population through two outpatient clinics and four fully- staffed mobile medical units. It also runs respite care centers for more serious cases, like homeless individuals with cancer or recuperating from surgery and functions as a heat relief center where individuals can access water and food during the day.
Traffic booms every summer as the heat climbs, according to spokesperson Marty Hames.
“As we’re all well aware these excessive temperatures and warnings are uncomfortable for most of us but sadly, for many people in our community, it’s potentially deadly and extremely dangerous,” she said. “So, this time of year, we see a surge in the number of patients who are facing homelessness, coming into our outpatient clinics, and we also have seen an increase in the number of people seeking care through our mobile medical unit.”
Typical issues the staff sees during these extra hot summer months are dehydration, heat stroke, heat exhaustion, excessive sun exposure and blistering on the feet from a lack of footwear. And then there are the issues no one thinks about, like diabetes complications from not being able to store insulin or a malfunctioning glucometer, kidney issues from a lack of water, full-body burns from falling asleep on scorching pavement.
“While of course we’re doing everything we can to treat injuries and the result of heat exposure that can be deadly, it’s also simple things like giving someone a shirt to wear or a proper pair of shoes or a pair of socks,” said Hames. “It means that we’re looking at the whole person, not just the condition that they’re coming in for because our end goal of course is to end the cycle of homelessness.”
Organizations are concerned with the number of heat-associated deaths that occurred in 2020, during the height of the pandemic and which boasted a record- breaking number of days with excessive heat warnings from the National Weather Service.
There were 323 heat-associated deaths reported in 2020, a 62.3% increase from 2019, and 15 times the amount from 2001, according to data from Maricopa County. Approximately 53% of cases were homeless at time of death, which doubled from 66 in 2019 to 172 in 2020.
The Phoenix City Council recently approved a new Office of Heat Response and Mitigation to coordinate heat support and mitigation efforts across the city, including tree shade, structural shade and infrastructure and support for those vulnerable to extreme heat. It also offers funding to nonprofi ts and shelters like the Human Services Campus.
The HSC runs Central Arizona Shelter Services, the largest homeless shelter in downtown Phoenix. While it offers 540 emergency shelter beds across its campuses every night, there are not enough beds to support everyone seeking shelter.
Nonprofits like the Phoenix Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army offer mobile outreach programs to better reach the transient population where they’re at and offer some small relief during the summer months.
Gabe Priddy, the street outreach supervisor for Phoenix Rescue Mission, says the organization relies on the relationships its case managers have built in the community.
“Our case managers are mobile, so they operate out of vehicles rather than an office,” he said. “They carry large coolers with cold water to hand out to the men, women, and families they encounter. Since they have built relationships within the homeless population around
the Valley, they can check up daily on people that need resources and water.”
In June 2021 alone, the street outreach teams had 1,335 touches, 790 engagements, and 82 rescues across the Valley.
“As we see an increase in the homeless population, we also see an increase in heat-related issues within the homeless population,” said Priddy.
“The two go hand in hand. Our case managers have had to call EMTs on a few occasions when they encountered someone who was in heat distress.”
Major David Yardley, the metro Phoenix coordinator for the Salvation Army, said going out into the community is critical for his operation as well.
“If you’ve ever tried to walk in 110 degrees, you don’t get very far without feeling the elements and so we never know how far they are away from us,” he said. “So we try to go out in our mobile units during that time as well.”
The mobile units hand out water and supplies like sunscreen, lip balm, hats, cooling towels, hand sanitizer and more. The Salvation Army also operates 11 cooling centers across the Valley that homeless people, seniors and anyone with unstable access to air conditioning can take advantage of. They’re open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; they also remain open on the weekends when the NWS issues excessive heat warnings.
This year, the Salvation Army has served 12,000 people either out on the road or in their cooling stations and has handed out around 30,000 bottles of water.
“Every day requires everyone to make sure we care for our brothers and sisters, whether they’re homeless or whether they’re all living in our neighborhood to check in on them, to make sure they have the water resources,” said Yardley.
Lindsay is a Phoenix native and is thrilled to be reporting in her hometown.
After spending several years in advertising after college, she switched gears and graduated with her master’s degree in journalism at Arizona State University in 2019.
When she’s not writing, you can usually find her reading a book or playing with her family’s dogs.
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