Extreme heat’s highest toll among vulnerable

It's been a wickedly hot summer so far and it's likely to get even hotter in the future.

Twenty-five years ago, the City of Chicago suffered through a devastating heat wave. Hundreds of vulnerable people lost their lives, many of them seniors who lived in inadequately ventilated, low-income rental housing.

In 2003, Western Europe experienced weeks of intense temperatures that killed 30,000 people.

Closer to home, in 2018 Montreal experienced its hottest summer in 97 years. That heat wave, two Julys ago, resulted in 66 deaths and public health officials recorded almost 6,000 ambulance calls.

Our communities are at growing risk from a rapidly heating planet.

Heat waves are becoming far too frequent, and far too deadly in regions where they haven't been experienced before.

In a typical year, heat waves kill more people than all other natural disasters combined. Those outcomes will only intensify as the effects of global warming accelerate.

Unfortunately, global climate change isn't taking a break for the COVID-19 pandemic. This summer, the Siberian Arctic has been sweltering through temperatures of plus 30 C. The past five years have been the hottest on record.

Carbon dioxide levels are at their highest levels in the atmosphere in 650,000 years - a result of human industrial processes spewing discharges into the air. Even if governments did everything in their power to reduce industrial carbon emissions today, temperatures would continue to rise for decades.

That means prolonged heat waves will be part of our future and that's why it's essential to plan and mitigate for what lies ahead.

While certain regions will be hit harder by extreme temperatures, it's reckless to believe that Southern Ontario would be immune from prolonged periods of extreme, dangerous heat. We've had a preview of those hot, humid temperatures this month.

NASA reports that by the end of the century, what had been once-in-twenty-year extreme heat events (heat waves lasting many days) are projected to occur every two or three years.

Global warming and income inequality are linked.

People living in poverty or experiencing social exclusion are hit hardest and suffer most from extreme temperatures. Seniors, persons with disabilities and particularly those in adequate housing or living rough on the streets will be most at risk.

Many highrise apartment buildings are heat traps. Concrete multistory complexes heat up during the day and often take hours to cool down - offering little relief for those without air conditioning.

Because of age and disrepair, rooming houses and residential care homes, often considered the most modest form of rental accommodation, are also particularly vulnerable.

It's rare to find landlords or property management companies that invest in heat-mitigation strategies -such as green roofs- that provide shade, remove heat from buildings, and reduce temperatures of the roof surface.

And governments -whether federal, provincial or local- haven't done nearly enough to mitigate the risk of extreme heat, particularly for those living in vulnerable housing. Cathy Crowe, a Toronto street nurse and this country's leading voice against the dangers of extreme heat has repeatedly pointed out, Very few Canadian municipalities are prepared for a heat wave".

Maybe it's because in Canada we naturally worry more about the risk of extreme cold; yet far more people die from complications related to heat exposure than they do from extreme cold.

The City of Hamilton has an innovative program to assist social assistance recipients with the costs of purchasing an air conditioner, but even that can become problematic when landlords stack on extra fees for installing and running cooling units. For many low-income tenants, the cost of running air conditioners is simply unaffordable.

Over the last few weeks, family members have been sharing concerns about hot conditions in Ontario's long-term care homes where inside temperatures have hit 30 C or more.

Premier Ford is considering making air conditioning mandatory in seniors' homes - the province needs to more!

While a landlord is responsible for providing heat to a residential dwelling at a minimum of 21 C between Sept. 15 and June 1 of each year, there's no obligation to keep temperatures below a certain threshold in summer.

Some jurisdictions in the United States consider air conditioning as an essential need: A tenant has a right to air conditioning and the landlord is required to provide it.

In Phoenix, Arizona, rental units that use air conditioning cannot exceed a maximum temperature of 27 C. In Dallas, landlords are required to provide their tenants with refrigerated air" from April 1 to Nov. 1.

With the frequency of heat waves and soaring temperatures in Southern Ontario, it is time for the province to recognize air conditioning as an essential and vital service the same way it does with heat in winter.

The Residential Tenancies Act needs to be amended to require landlords to provide and install adequate cooling systems in residential units in order to maintain indoor temperatures at room temperature (20-22 C). This requirement should be in place from June 15 until Sept. 1 of each year after which the existing indoor heat requirements for residential units come into effect.

If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that planning ahead is essential. The heat is already here and there's much more to come.

Ali Naraghi is a staff lawyer at Hamilton Community Legal Clinic and Tom Cooper is director of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.