Months after South Florida baked through a record-breaking summer marked by relentless heat advisories, soaring energy bills, and indoor temperatures that became unbearable for thousands, a growing body of research is making one thing clear: for people living in older, under-resourced affordable housing, extreme heat is not just uncomfortable; it’s dangerous.
“Extreme heat is the deadliest climate impact and is colliding with the nation’s long-standing shortage in safe, affordable housing for people with the lowest incomes,” said Zoe Middleton, a co-author of the “Colliding Crises” report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and associate director for climate resilience at UCS.
In Miami and across the country, that collision is playing out inside aging, poorly insulated apartments where renters on tight budgets struggle to stay cool. For Ashon Nesbitt, CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition, the link is direct.
“When you combine an aging housing stock with rising temperatures and higher energy costs, it’s clear we have to address energy efficiency and resilience together, especially for low- and moderate-income households,” Nesbitt said.
A hot state
The UCS report examined nearly 8 million homes in public housing, project-based subsidized, manufactured, and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit properties, analyzing National Weather Service heat alerts during “Danger Season,” between May and October 2024. Most residents in the nation’s affordable housing experienced at least seven days of heat alerts; nearly half faced 21 or more.
Florida ranks among the states with the largest number of affordable homes exposed to one or more weeks of heat alerts, along with Texas, New York, California, and Ohio…