![]() ![]() But with that aid running out, the housing agency says starting in October, tenants must pay $8 a month or give back their AC units. When COVID hit, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio used emergency pandemic aid to distribute free ACs to low-income households, including 16,000 in public housing. The public housing agency in New York City cites those federal guidelines, as well as its "current financial hardships," as the reason for a newly announced air-conditioning fee. ![]() In a statement to NPR, the agency said, "HUD regulations require that the cost of air conditioning for resident units be paid by the residents, except in the case that elderly or disabled households necessitate it as a reasonable accommodation." In buildings where a local housing agency pays utility expenses, "families must be charged a surcharge or otherwise pay for. It also recently clarified to local housing agencies that they are allowed to spend federal money for air conditioning, though only to set up cooling centers in common areas, not for units in individual apartments. ![]() HUD declined an interview request but says it is "exploring options" for a cooling requirement. The National Housing Law Project and others urged it to also include a cooling standard during summer months, but the agency did not. HUD recently updated its safety inspection standards which, for the first time, include a temperature threshold to make sure apartments are warm enough during winter. "So figure it out."įederal regulations restrict spending on individual air conditioners in public housing Still, "it is unsafe and inhumane to expect people to live in Texas, especially central and south Texas, without air conditioning," Bernal says. Diego Bernal, pictured in July 2021, was shocked when he found out a few years ago that some 2,400 public housing residents in San Antonio had no air conditioner and could not afford to get one.īernal says he understands the public housing system is "wildly underfunded." HUD has an astounding $80 billion construction backlog, and many of its buildings are in disrepair. In the process, the Department of Housing and Urban Development rejected the use of a federal grant because the window air conditioners were deemed a temporary upgrade, not permanent.ĪP Texas state Democratic Rep. The City of San Antonio put up money and helped find other funding to get AC units for all public housing residents. I mean, I knew all kinds of kids who came from there."īernal, a Democrat, set out to fix this. "Not only do I represent the area, but it also is across the street from my middle school. "It blew my mind, and I was embarrassed," Bernal says. No, she explained, she was among some 2,400 public housing residents there who had no air conditioner and could not afford to get one. He assumed hers was simply broken and offered to send someone to fix it. He was chatting with a woman who lived in public housing in San Antonio, and she mentioned how brutal the heat was with no AC. Diego Bernal remembers the moment he learned about this problem a few years ago. "That's when we start seeing families paying well above 30% of their income in rent, which makes these programs less affordable." she says.Ī proposal to mandate AC in Texas public housing faced pushback this year 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. Many tenants get an allowance for utilities that includes heat, but federal rules actually specify that it not cover air conditioning. Much public housing is decades old, built before central air was widely available, and it would be incredibly expensive to add it now. And yet even as extreme heat becomes more common, it remains a struggle for many tenants to get AC. 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. "I was sitting like this most of the time next to it," she says during an interview in her one-bedroom apartment, "because it really only cooled like, right here."Īs heat waves get worse, air conditioning has come to feel like a must-have even in parts of the U.S. Vansmith borrowed an "itty bitty" portable air conditioner from her sister, which was still a huge relief and at least allowed her to sleep. You know, I'd lose my appetite completely, and it was just so miserably hot," she says. She has heart disease, a condition that puts her at higher risk for heat illness, and she remembers how awful she felt with no air conditioner and temperatures soaring up to 116. When deadly heat hit the Pacific Northwest two years ago, hundreds of people died, including several residents of public housing in Portland. ![]()
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