How Do You Escape a Heat Wave When You Have Nowhere to Go?

People experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable to the health ramifications of extreme heat, which is worsening due to climate change. Finding a cool place at night is a particular challenge.

CHICAGO—In a large, air-conditioned room in East Garfield Park on Monday afternoon, Dhruv Trivedi waited quietly to hear if a bed would be available for him at a local shelter that night. 

It was a sweltering 95 degrees outside. Trivedi, unhoused for the past four months since losing his job at a grocery store, was facing his first heat wave without a place to go. Already, as the temperatures had risen in recent weeks, he’d experienced dehydration and headaches on hot nights outdoors.

Trivedi was one of a dozen Chicagoans seeking refuge at the Garfield Community Service Center, a resource hub doubling as one of the city’s designated cooling areas as the atmospheric heat dome encasing much of the country this week drove temperatures dangerously high. But the center would close at 5 that afternoon. Staffers there try to coordinate shelter beds for those who need them, but demand has been high. 

“You need to wait all the day and you’re not sure the beds are available or not available,” Trivedi said. Often, he ends up sleeping outside. He hoped he’d have more luck that night. 

The oppressive temperatures and humidity this week, increasingly common with climate change, are especially dangerous for unhoused people. Resources like the cooling center Trivedi visited can provide temporary relief, but when these sites close for the day, many people without housing are left with few options for escaping hazardous conditions.

The health impacts of extreme weather on unhoused people are often under-recorded. But researchers have found this group accounts for a disproportionate number of heat deaths.  

Conditions are getting worse as pollution from oil, gas and other human activities rapidly change the climate. Scientists predict that before the end of the century, Chicago could suffer extreme heat like that of its 1995 heat wave—which killed more than 700 people, disproportionately Black and elderly—every other year under a low-emissions scenario. Under a higher-emissions future, it could be up to three times per year.

A few rows in front of Trivedi in the community center, 65-year-old Curtis Hackett sat on a plastic chair, holding a walking cane. Hackett, who estimated he has been unhoused for more than 15 years, has spent many nights outside in dangerous heat. Last weekend, he said, felt particularly severe.

Now he rubbed his knee as the cold air in the room caused his arthritis to flare up, making his joints painfully stiff. But going out into the heat was no better, triggering his asthma and bronchitis.

“When I’m out there, it’ll choke me,” he said. “So I come in here.” 

Heat risks worsen when temperatures remain high at night and the body has no opportunity to cool down, a problem mounting with climate change. Over the weekend in Chicago, minimum temperatures of 78 and 80 broke records from more than 100 years ago for this time in June. 

“It’s like you got a mask on,” Hackett said. “It’s just like you got a fan on and it’s blowing hot air, that’s exactly how I feel.”

Heat Intensifies Existing Inequities

More than 150 million people across the country received extreme weather warnings in the past week. After the National Weather Service issued such a warning for the Chicagoland area from Saturday through Monday night, city officials warned residents to take precautions, particularly staying inside and hydrated.

Those measures are easier said than done for unhoused people or anyone else without regular access to a cool indoor environment. To help bridge that gap, city officials advertised more than 200 cooling areas, including six community service centers, a network of satellite senior centers, and myriad other publicly run locations like libraries, police departments, park pools and splash pads. 

But Garfield Community Service Center—where Trivedi and Hackett took refuge from the heat on Monday—was the only one of those six centers that was open over the weekend. It’s located in the predominantly Black and low-income neighborhood of East Garfield Park, on the city’s West Side. 

The Garfield center, which was open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. over the weekend and closes at 5 p.m. on weekdays, was the most-used of the city’s cooling centers, peaking with around a dozen visitors each day from Saturday through Monday, according to the Department of Family and Support Services. Some of the other community service cooling centers had no visitors on Monday.

Anna Patterson, president of Chicago Street Medicine, a nonprofit organization that coordinates medical student volunteers to provide healthcare services to unhoused people throughout the city, said it’s hard for some residents to access city shelters and cooling centers.

“The cooling centers are a fantastic addition, but they don’t always meet the needs of everyone,” she said. 

The city offers a network of shelters, placement assistance and drop-in centers for unhoused people. Still, last year the city counted nearly 19,000 unhoused people in Chicago on a single night, and resources are often limited. Local advocates have repeatedly pointed out gaps, particularly the insufficiency of shelter options after business hours.

Monica Dillon, a retired nurse and volunteer with Northwest Side Outreach, a grassroots group that supports unhoused people, criticized closures of city cooling centers during a heat wave last year, pointing out risks for vulnerable residents.

During this week’s heat wave, Dillon called paramedics for two unhoused people exhibiting symptoms of heat stress. She also found that many of the locations listed on the city’s website were inaccessible or underutilized. 

Like most of the community service centers, all of the senior centers listed on the cooling center resources page are closed on the weekends, including during the heat wave, she said. While public libraries were well-utilized, Dillon said, she noted that other options, like splash pads at city parks, are targeted at children and are not realistic solutions for many adults and seniors seeking relief from the heat. Although the city advertises that police stations are open 24/7 for people to escape the heat or cold, Dillon added that some unhoused people may not feel safe taking refuge there. 

“We must dismantle the barriers to our designated cooling sites, ensuring they are truly accessible, welcoming, and consistently open—especially during peak heat hours and on weekends,” Dillon wrote in an email. “The lives of our most vulnerable residents depend on immediate and decisive action.”

But advocates emphasize that shelters and cooling centers aren’t the ultimate solution. 

“Anything that is not directly targeting the primary insult, which is houselessness, is a kind of Band-Aid solution,” said Ishaan Kumar, a medical student at the University of Chicago and a volunteer with Chicago Street Medicine. “The cure is a house, a home.”

High temperatures can lead to dehydration, confusion, heatstroke and even death: Nationally, heat kills more people each year than any other kind of extreme weather, and heat deaths are increasing both globally and in the U.S. Symptoms of heat illness—like heat stroke and heat exhaustion—include dizziness and confusion, fatigue, nausea and vomiting. 

Jacob Martin, public information coordinator for the Chicago Department of Public Health, wrote in an email that early signs indicate that emergency visits were elevated for elderly residents of the north and northwest sides of the city during the heat wave. 

The city is continuing to collect data on health impacts of the heat, he said. His agency and the Department of Family and Support Services are also working to develop training on heat-related illness for street-outreach workers helping people experiencing homelessness.

“We encourage residents to learn about the signs of heat-related illness and public health guidance regarding heat preparedness to stay safe during future heat waves,” Martin wrote. 

In the Heat, Help Is Limited

On Monday afternoon at the Garfield Community Service Center in East Garfield Park, Tom Dukes sat a few seats away from Trivedi, a rolling suitcase next to his chair. 

Dukes had come to the center to coordinate purchasing a copy of his birth certificate, which he needs in order to apply for housing. Most nights, he sleeps outside a nearby police station, he said. 

The heat, he added, is “miserable.”

“It kind of makes you dizzy here and there,” he said. “Groggy.”

Trivedi first moved to the United States more than five years ago from Mumbai, India, to continue his education in California. His family is still in Mumbai, and although he stays in touch with them, he doesn’t want to worry them with the extent of his struggle with housing.

In Chicago, he is mostly alone. 

“I don’t know anybody over here,” he said. “This is a completely new city for me.”

When 5 p.m. arrived, Trivedi hadn’t been matched with a shelter bed. City employees ushered him and the other visitors out onto the street, where the sun was still high and the heat fierce and stifling. A Salvation Army van pulled up outside the center, handing out juice and soup. A small group congregated near the entrance to eat. 

Trivedi boarded a city bus with several bags of possessions in hand, still hoping to find a place to stay. But that night, with temperatures in the 80s, he slept outside. 

Cover photo:  A man cools off in the shade at Daley Plaza as temperatures climbed into the mid-90s on June 23 in Chicago. Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images