Intro: At 4am one day last week, the Guardian accompanied an outreach team to the downtown zone where many of the city’s shelters and homeless services are concentrated, for their weekly count. . During the day, the sun is punishing and the heat radiating off the asphalt scorches the skin. There’s a handful of portaloos and taps, but only one cold water spigot. City workers, NGOs and concerned residents hand out cold drinks and cooling blankets on very hot days when the temperature on the asphalt can hit 160F.
Unhoused in Phoenix’s perilous heat: ‘If I don’t keep cool, I’ll die’
In this sweltering heat, keeping cool is the hardest thing for Spell and the rapidly rising unsheltered population in Phoenix – one of America’s fastest growing cities which has an extreme heat and affordable housing problem.
Affordable apartments are disappearing in Maricopa county
Analysis of complexes with 50+ units in Q4 of 2010-2021
Median rent
By 2021, 54% of units
cost at least $1,500 a
month compared
to 4% in 2016
$500
1k
1.5k
2k
100% of apartments
75
50
25
0
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
Median rent
By 2021, 54% of units
cost at least $1,500 a
month compared
to 4% in 2016
$500
1k
1.5k
2k
100% of apartments
75
50
25
0
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
Median rent
$500
$1k
$1.5k
$2k
100% of apartments
By 2021, 54% of
apartments cost
at least $1,500 a
month compared
to 4% in 2016
75
50
25
0
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
Median rent
$500
$1k
$1.5k
$2k
100% of apartments
By 2021, 54% of
apartments cost
at least $1,500 a
month compared
to 4% in 2016
75
50
25
0
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
Median rent
$500
$1k
$1.5k
$2k
100% of apartments
By 2021, 54% of
apartments cost
at least $1,500 a
month compared
to 4% in 2016
75
50
25
0
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
Since 2016, heat deaths have more than doubled in Maricopa county, which includes Phoenix, with unsheltered homeless people accounting for 40% of the death toll.
“We’re on the frontline of climate change and the housing crisis, but people aren’t connecting the dots,” said Patricia Soils from Arizona State University. “Exposure to extreme heat is a housing issue, and we’re the canary in the coalmine.”
[ ]Phoenix is accustomed to a hot desert climate, but the heat season has expanded and the number of perilously hot days and nights is rising, . .America’s fifth biggest city is the deadliest for heat fatalities with more than 650 heat deaths over the last two years.
According to the county’s annual count, 9,026 people were homeless on 24 January – 3,997 sheltered in hostels or hotels and 5,029 on the streets, which is triple the number of unsheltered people compared to 2016. Heat related deaths are preventable, but being outside without adequate shade and water increases the risk of medical complications and deadly heat exposure.
As the extreme heat season gets underway, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many people are currently homeless but the crisis has visibly gotten worse over recent months as rents and eviction rates have soared. . .
Last week’s count was 806, compared to 320 in July 2021 and 476 in December 2021. This is despite two government funded shelters sleeping 300 people opening in the past month.
The weekly snapshot of the zone provides a glimpse into a much bigger crisis.
There are men and women sleeping rough all over the city – in parks, near the rail tracks, on sidewalks, behind dumpsters, in parking lots and along the canals. None are included in the weekly count, nor are the people sleeping in cars or on sofas whom advocates believe are often self-evictors – people who left unaffordable apartments voluntarily after the Covid eviction moratorium and federal rental assistance ended.
Evictions are back to pre-pandemic levels with 4,000 to 5,000 a month so far this year as the affordable housing stock continues to shrink and the city’s 11% inflation rate is the highest in the country – in large because of house prices. . .
> Maricopa is the country’s fastest growing county with 5,000 people (mostly internal migrants) arriving on average each month.
In just one week on the streets of Phoenix, the Guardian met unsheltered people from Florida, New York, New Jersey, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Michigan, Idaho, California, Oregon, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Nevada and the Navajo Nation. .
> For years, advocates have warned about a looming housing crisis but there’s been little joined up action and affordable housing is now almost impossible to find. The cost of an average home in Phoenix has almost doubled in the past six years
In 2021, only 6% of the housing stock in Maricopa county was valued under $200,000 compared to 38% five years earlier. The Phoenix housing market is overpriced by 56%, according to researchers at Florida Atlantic university, as the US housing market goes through another historic boom.
> For renters, the situation is even more dire: in 2021, only 12% of properties had monthly rents under $1000 compared to 68% five years earlier.
Arizona is among a handful of states which prohibits local governments from enacting rent control or mandating developers to include affordable housing in new construction. In April, the county approved $17m of federal Covid aid from the American Rescue Plan Act for affordable housing projects. . .
> One in four of the city’s unsheltered population are over the age of 55, according to annual point-in-time count. In this heat, some seniors ride the bus all day to keep cool.
Nationwide, seniors are the fastest growing group in the homeless population, with many finding themselves on streets for the first time due to unaffordable rents, medical debts, job insecurity and family rifts. According to a 2019 study, the elderly homeless population could triple by 2030.
Spell cools off while unloading belongings into his storage container on 10 June as temperatures hit 112F. Photograph: Caitlin O’Hara for the Guardian
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