Jessica Berg, chief program officer for the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, takes a look around the organization’s dining hall on Key Campus, Phoenix’s downtown hub for homeless services. The campus is preparing for a big change this summer as two overflow shelter spaces begin nto wind down.
“This is the dining room, and in this space we’ll have 140-ish men, and then women will be through here,” Berg says.
She says, in the early days of the pandemic, shelters on the campus were trying to space out their residents, so the dining hall and another resource center building began opening overnight, with sleeping mats laid on the floor. Maricopa County allotted federal funding for the tens of thousands of dollars per month needed for staffing and other expenses to operate the spaces as makeshift shelters.
But as social distancing concerns became less urgent, the county kept funding the overflow spaces because the extra beds had become so critical, especially during Phoenix’s brutal summers.
“People get literal third-degree burns from laying or sitting on the ground, and if you don’t have anywhere to sleep, that’s where you’re sleeping,” Berg says.
But the overflow spaces were always meant to be temporary, and now, funding is running out. The dining hall will stay open for overnight use until October. But the other space will have to close at night starting June 1.
That means Key Campus will lose about 110 beds, just as dangerous heat sets in.
“It’s scary to say the least,” Berg says.
Scary, because it could be a life-or-death situation.
Heat-related deaths have skyrocketed in Maricopa County in the last decade. In 2014, 61 people died because of heat. Last year 602 people died.
The increase has coincided with fast growth among Maricopa County’s homeless population. But efforts to protect people from extreme heat, like the Key Campus overflow shelter spaces, are beginning to run out of pandemic-era funding, and no other permanent state or federal funding streams exist to pay for these programs.
“We know who is at highest risk. We know what works to get people cool and to keep them safe,” said Dr. Nick Staab, chief medical officer for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.
At least half of last year’s heat-related deaths in Maricopa County were among people experiencing homelessness. Expanding access to indoor, air conditioned spaces, especially for unhoused people has been central to the city and county’s strategies to reduce these deaths.
Counties and cities got a huge boost in federal funding for social services during the pandemic. In Maricopa County, a lot of that money went to heat relief.
What was once a patchwork system of libraries and churches that would offer places to rest in the air conditioning has grown in the past few years into a much more organized network of sites that are open more hours of the day and can often coordinate transportation or referrals for people needing treatment, housing or other services.
The county has also paid to repair or replace more than 1,000 air conditioners for low-income Maricopa County homeowners since 2021, using pandemic-related federal funding.
Staab said the interventions have been successful in keeping the death toll from climbing higher. Maricopa County even saw a slight year-over-year decrease in heat deaths last year, in spite of record-breaking temperatures.
“I think if we can just keep doing that, my hope is that we can keep lowering this number,” Staab said.
But the American Rescue Plan Act funding that’s paid for the majority of these new heat mitigation programs all expires at the end of 2026.
Staab said officials were proving a concept for the last few summers. Now they are looking for a way to keep it going.
“Is it private business, is it philanthropic efforts, state, county and local funds? I think there’s a lot of potential there if we can show that this is responsible and the right way to spend money to help people during the summer,” Staab said.
For organizations that have relied on these funds, the future feels uncertain.
“I bring it up at every single meeting I’m at, anywhere, to be the thorn in everyone’s side,” said the Rev. Katie Sexton, executive director of the Arizona Faith Network.
Sexton’s coalition of faith-based organizations also began its heat relief work with the help of pandemic grant funding. Last year, the group saw record demand across the 15 heat relief sites it operated in churches and other public spaces.
But if grant funds go away, Sexton said the organization’s own fundraising could probably only cover the costs of about three sites.
“We know that it’s not going to get any cooler, and yet we haven’t seen any kind of legislation that would enshrine heat relief funding into our state budget and we really, really, really need that,” Sexton said.
Bills related to heat relief got little traction in Arizona’s state Legislature this year.
At the federal level, heat relief doesn’t have an obvious funding source either.
FEMA doesn’t respond to heat the way it does for other natural disasters. Funding opportunities from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that help states pay for vaccination, overdose prevention, or disease tracking don’t exist in the same way for the public health threat of extreme heat. And the federal program to help low-income Americans cover utility bills or home weatherization costs directs more money to cold weather states.
New funding cuts from the Trump administration threaten to chip away at other public health resources that could indirectly impact Arizona’s response to heat. Arizona’s state and county public health agencies stand to lose $190 million in grant funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for example.
This year, the city of Phoenix plans to spend $4.9 million on heat mitigation programs. Remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds will cover some of that. The city will also supplement its heat relief budget with payout money from opioid settlements. But Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego has been vocal about her concerns about heat budgets in the long-term.
“Phoenix cannot do this alone,” Gallego told reporters at a press conference in October during which she called for the federal government, the state, and even other Arizona cities to pitch in more as temperatures rise. “We’re being asked to do more, but given fewer resources.”
Phoenix had a record-shattering 70 days above 110 degrees in 2024. Gallego said that was likely only the city’s hottest summer so far.
“I’m hopeful one silver lining about the terrible heat numbers from this summer is that we will realize this is a national issue, it is not just a Phoenix issue and we will finally see Congress pass legislation,” Gallego said.
U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona is sponsoring a bill in Congress this year to create a $30 million grant program through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat in urban areas across the U.S. But the Democrat-backed bill faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress.
For now, those like Berg, who work directly with Phoenix’s most vulnerable populations, are doing their best to prepare as summer approaches and resources dwindle.
“It’s just a bigger problem than we all have capacity for right now,” Berg said.
