The Show for Aug. 20, 2026: Energy poverty, how to get into a sorority and more

More and more households across Arizona are having trouble paying their utility bills — and it comes as demand for energy is also going up. Plus, sorority hopefuls are hiring coaches to help them get into the best houses.

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, Nonprofit for Arizona,bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforAZ.

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, could the financial loss taken by the company owned by the Suns owner end up impacting the team?

LAUREN GILGER: And we meet the sorority coach helping girls get into Arizona sororities.

MARK BRODIE: But first, the percentage of kindergartners in this country who have exemptions from getting mandatory school vaccines was up last school year from 3.6% to 4.2%. That means about 155,000 more students were exempt from the vaccines. In Arizona, more than 10.5% of kindergartners had an exemption, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is happening as the country deals with its worst measles outbreak in more than three decades. The vaccine for measles is one of those that’s generally required to go to school as part of the MMR vaccine, which also includes mumps and rubella. With me to talk about this is Ashley Chambers, executive director of the group Arizona Families for Vaccines. Ashley, good morning. Welcome.

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Do these numbers surprise you at all?

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: No. These numbers absolutely do not surprise me.

MARK BRODIE: How come?

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: I think anybody who is in America right now, if you are paying attention to anything — whether that’s the news, whether that’s social media, whether that’s conversations happening in your neighborhood, people are talking about vaccines. And some people are talking about them positively. But I think for the most part, the conversations that people do have about vaccines are negative conversations. And that’s based off of misinformation.

I think the majority of people, if you are talking about vaccines, it’s because you’re not supportive of them. The majority of people just vaccinate their kids, move on with their life and then don’t talk about it.

MARK BRODIE: So, what does it mean in Arizona? Obviously, this is not like every county, every city has the same number. But 10.5% of 5-year-olds, kindergartners, 5- and 6-year-olds going to kindergarten aren’t vaccinated against things like measles and chicken pox and whooping cough and polio.

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: Yeah, that’s huge. I mean, if you think about it — think about a birthday party that you would have with your kids. If 10% of those kiddos aren’t vaccinated and you’ve got 20 kids there, that’s two kids. That’s two kids that could potentially be spreading a disease to others that aren’t vaccinated. And that’s a big problem.

And I think the thing that we’re missing, the thing that is said a lot in this debate is, “Well, if you’re vaccinated, why do you care if other people are vaccinated?” But that is just a huge scientific literacy problem, because there are kids going through cancer treatment, newborn babies, even toddlers that aren’t fully immunized. So, when you are talking about people who are unvaccinated, you are posing a risk to those people who cannot get vaccinated or are too young to do it.

MARK BRODIE: So, what does it mean for those classrooms? I mean, as you say, there are some kids for whom it’s not possible to get vaccinated. We saw this during COVID. There were people who, for whatever reason, their immune systems would not allow them to take the vaccine. So, what does it mean? We’re dealing with a measles outbreak in the state and around the country. What’s the implication of this percentage of students who are not vaccinated?

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: I mean, I think we are sitting ducks. We are vulnerable to a resurgence of diseases that we had for all intents and purposes eradicated in this country. I think we’re really headed down a path — and quite honestly, I don’t see it changing. I don’t see it changing anytime soon because vaccines are a victim of their own success, right? The reason that parents nowadays are susceptible to misinformation is because they’re not seeing the repercussions of measles. They’re not seeing kids in wheelchairs because of paralytic polio. They’re not seeing these things. And until we start seeing a really big resurgence of these things, I don’t think parents are going to take it seriously. I just don’t.

MARK BRODIE: Do you think the fact that we are seeing the number of cases of measles we’re seeing now might change that?

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if people hearing a story about a friend of a friend who got measles is going to change their mind. I think the social media culture behind the anti-vaccine community is so strong. I have seen some posts that would blow your mind.

And I think it’s really scary for parents who have this brand new baby or this toddler and they see them as so vulnerable. You worked so hard to create this life, and it’s beautiful. And then your pediatrician is talking to you about things that you may not understand, and they have a very short window of time to talk to you about it with that visit, right? They’re talking about these different types of vaccines that are important to protect this precious angel against things you have never seen.

Yet, you go home and you are inundated in maybe your mom chats or on your Facebook feed about scary things that have happened to this precious angel that they got from a vaccine. And whether or not it’s true, it’s in your brain, right? So that’s what you’re thinking about. So when you think about the amount of time that this misinformation has to capture you versus the amount of time that your pediatrician has to spend with you in that brief period of time of your appointment, I think it’s no wonder that we are seeing these vaccine rates drop like this.

MARK BRODIE: Are we seeing different reasons for parents getting exemptions from their kids from these vaccines?

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: Yeah, I mean, in Arizona, we have a couple different ways that you can get exemptions. The first one is a medical exemption. So for those kiddos that for whatever reason, maybe their immune system, has gone through cancer treatment or they have an autoimmune disease, but they cannot get a vaccine, so they get a medical exemption. That is less than 1%. That is a tiny percent.

MARK BRODIE: And I would assume you’re OK with that kind of exemption, yeah?

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: Of course, yeah. And I don’t have a blanket policy about exemptions, period. I wouldn’t come on here and say I have a blanket policy about exemptions. What I would say is that the majority of parents who are getting exemptions are getting it based off of misinformation. They’re not getting it for a religious reason — because the majority of religions, almost all major religions, promote vaccination. And they promote it because they know that it protects community. and it protects individuals. I would say the majority of it is personal beliefs based off of misinformation about the dangers of vaccines.

And I will say this, we have had anecdotal data about parents who say that they will not vaccinate their kids just because they know that herd immunity is so high. But — but once they have started to see herd immunity waning a little bit and they’re starting to see reports of measles, they have then decided to make the choice to then vaccinate their kiddos. ... So it’s interesting, but I don’t think that that is a large percentage of parents. And again, that’s anecdotal data. We don’t have studies that ask parents, “Why did you now choose to vaccinate your kiddos after all this time?” And I think that would be a great study to do. So if any researchers are listening.

MARK BRODIE: All right, so Ashley, before we let you go, you sound pretty pessimistic about these numbers changing. At the same time though, it is your job to try to make that happen. So, what can people like you, groups like yours, do to try to reverse this?

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: Yeah, so my organization, Arizona Families for Vaccines, we want policy that increases access and confidence in vaccines. So we do not talk to individuals about whether or not they should vaccinate their kiddos. That’s for the conversation between your pediatrician and the parent. But what we want and what we call on our elected leaders to do is to start putting policies and messaging in place that encourages parents to vaccinate their kiddos, and it encourages parents to learn more about vaccines.

And they need to come together with a solution about how to fight misinformation. Just posting stuff on social media is not enough.

And one thing I would say, I would ask our Arizona legislators to stop putting forth bills that are based off of vaccine misinformation. For better or for worse, these people are looked at as leaders in their community, and when year after year we have lawmakers putting forth bills based off of misinformation, spreading misinformation about vaccines, that is particularly harmful.

MARK BRODIE: All right, we’ll have to leave it there. That is Ashley Chambers, executive director of the group Arizona Families for Vaccines. Ashley, thank you.

ASHLEY CHAMBERS: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: The mortgage company owned by Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia reported a nearly half-billion-dollar loss for the second quarter of this year. That announcement came on the same day United Wholesale Mortgage said it was entering into a more than $2 billion capital partnership with an investment firm called Oaktree Capital Management. These moves have raised questions about Ishbia’s finances and what it could potentially mean for his ownership of the Suns and WNBA’s Mercury. Corina Vanek has written about this. She’s the development reporter for the Arizona Republic. She joins me now to talk more about what’s going on here. Corina, good morning.

CORINA VANEK: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for being here. So, what happened with United Wholesale Mortgage? That’s a pretty, seems like a pretty big loss.

CORINA VANEK: It is a big loss, especially following a quarter where they had a net gain, so kind of a pretty stark difference between Q1 and Q2 for United Wholesale Mortgage. I think they attribute it to kind of a number of different factors, but you’re right that after the announcement of the partnership with Oaktree, the losses were posted, but the stock price also dropped pretty rapidly.

MARK BRODIE: And am I right that Ishbia and his representatives and the company are saying that the two are not necessarily related, like they’re not entering into this partnership with the other firm to make up for the loss, right?

CORINA VANEK: So, yes and no. I think that the partnership kind of was related a little bit more to a failed merger that United Wholesale Mortgage was trying to enter in with another company called Two Harbors. It wasn’t actually a merger, United Wholesale Mortgage was going to acquire Two Harbors. And then kind of later down the line after it had been announced, Two Harbors backed out of that deal and then decided to merge with another company.

And that’s now in litigation, but it does make sense that some of this loss kind of closely mirrors what they were expecting to get out of the Two Harbors acquisition. So, there could be accounted for that way.

MARK BRODIE: Is there also a role in interest rates in what’s going on with United Wholesale Mortgage?

CORINA VANEK: At large, yes. Nationally, home sales are down. So, when your company is solely based off of mortgage lending and fewer people are buying houses and taking out mortgages because of interest rates and because of home pricing and just kind of wider factors in our economy, obviously that makes sense that a wholesale mortgage company would suffer because of higher interest rates and fewer home sales.

MARK BRODIE: So obviously, Mat Ishbia has a good amount of money. He owns this company, he owns the Suns and the Mercury. How big of a hit was this to United Wholesale Mortgage? Is this concerning to them?

CORINA VANEK: I think it is probably concerning more so than they probably want to say. But Ishbia did kind of, during his earnings call, allude to the idea that he personally could have funded this $2 billion influx that they got from Oaktree. As it stands, he actually already is putting in about 550 million of his own money.

So, he alluded to the idea he could have funded it himself, but chose to partner with Oaktree for a strategic partner and kind of what they bring to the table. That’s kind of for them to decide what the value is that Oaktree brings, but that is what he mentioned in the earnings call.

MARK BRODIE: OK. And am I right that he has also said that this in no way impacts his role and ownership of the Suns and Mercury?

CORINA VANEK: Yes. They have been quite clear about that, that these are kind of unrelated issues to his ownership of the teams. In fact, a spokesperson from UWM said and confirmed that Mat is kind of in the later stages of buying out many of the minority owners of the Suns and Mercury, which will bring his ownership, I believe it’s to 99%, so he will own nearly all of the teams himself.

MARK BRODIE: Is that — I mean, obviously nobody knows his finances better than he and his team do, but like in the world of finance and maybe even in the world of the NBA, are there people who are questioning whether he can continue owning the team and spending the kind of money that one needs to spend to own a team?

CORINA VANEK: I think I’ve seen some speculation kind of one way or another, but I haven’t seen, you know, widespread concern from the NBA or any other team owners saying that this is, you know, a major red flag or anything that needs to be immediately dealt with.

I think that obviously a company, a publicly traded company at that, is going to have its ups and downs. But I think that to suggest that it’s going to affect the ownership of the team might be a little bit premature. And who knows, maybe this deal will right the ship.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. Yeah, so how significant is the deal with Oaktree Capital Management? Is United Wholesale Mortgage saying, like, “This is all we need, we’re good now”?

CORINA VANEK: They’re saying that this deal will help them kind of fortify their finances for now and pay down a lot of existing debt. So I don’t know that it means that they’ll be totally in the clear after this deal is done.

But Oaktree does get some representation on the board after this deal is done, and then they’ll have a little bit of voting power as far as the future of UWM. So there will be kind of some shifts there. But yeah, they did say that this is mostly to pay down debt and kind of strengthen their balance sheets right now.

MARK BRODIE: I would imagine the future of the company is kind of tied, as you referenced earlier, to the future of the housing market and how many people are buying and how many mortgages they need to take out and what the interest rates are on those mortgages, yeah?

CORINA VANEK: For sure. And that’s something that Mat Ishbia also kind of mentioned in his call, and they’ve kind of echoed that sentiment in the last couple of days, has been that mortgages are typically cyclical. They kind of follow economic cycles. If people don’t have the extra money to spend, they might stay in their house longer or they might not want to get a mortgage at the interest rates that are being offered right now.

So, the idea being as the economic cycle kind of shifts and change and maybe rates change, people will be more willing to buy houses. It would help a company like United Wholesale Mortgage.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. All right, that is Corina Vanek. She covers development for the Arizona Republic. Corina, thanks as always. Appreciate it.

CORINA VANEK: Yeah, thanks so much.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, a sorority coach who preps young women on what it takes to audition for Greek life.

TAMI SHAW: Well, I usually start working with a girl when she’s a senior in high school. And by then, they already have a lot of pictures on their Instagram. And their mothers will say to me, “Please tell her to take that picture down.” And I will look. I’ve seen it all, trust me.

MARK BRODIE: What does it take to get into the house of their dreams?

LAUREN GILGER: But first, when residents of Surprise found out earlier this year that a massive immigration detention and processing center was planned to go into a 400,000-square-foot-plus warehouse in their city, they pushed back.

Republicans and Democrats alike were concerned about the lack of notice from the federal government and strains on the city that could result.

It’s just one example of the kind of pushback to immigration detention centers that our next guest highlights in his new book, “How to Close a Camp.” Journalist John Washington chose to call them immigration camps purposefully in this book, echoing the history of concentration camps he thinks is apropos.

He’ll be at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe next week, and I spoke with him more about it, beginning with his own immigration story that led him to this work.

JOHN WASHINGTON: My mother, she migrated, basically fled from Romania when she was a teenager and settled in Ohio. And I grew up in that Romanian American community, where being a migrant was one of the core pieces of a lot of people’s identity. And it was one of the main stories that they told about their history, and we’re really happy to have found a place to settle.

And that came into stark contrast, that reality, and that sort of feeling of welcome came into stark contrast when I started realizing and came of age politically, what the situation is like for so many other migrants and how things have changed — especially along the U.S.-Mexico border, but obviously now much beyond that — where people feel very much the opposite of welcome. They feel fear. Tom Homan, the border czar before the second Trump administration came back into office, said that all migrants should be looking over their shoulder.

LAUREN GILGER: I want to talk about immigration detention centers. In this book, you’re calling them camps, which I know is a purposeful decision that you address right off the bat. Tell us why.

JOHN WASHINGTON: Well, I think when you call them camps, you sort of have this idea of a really dark period in recent human history, which is during the Second World War and the proliferation of concentration camps. And people are both sort of, I think, drawn to and wary of thinking through that history when we see what’s happening today in the immigration detention landscape.

But when you get down to it, there is a definition of concentration camp, which is the confinement of civilians who have not necessarily committed a crime, and the long-term confinement of them. And that is exactly what we’re seeing today. And we have that one what I already mentioned, this one recent history of concentration camps used in the Third Reich, but we also have had concentration camps in the United States. I mean, what are often sort of euphemistically termed internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II.

And you go back further into the history and you look at the pattern of reservations for Native Americans and see how some of these things sort of blend together. And the very first concentration camps in the world in Cuba, South Africa and the Philippines were sort of used as models for the development later in the 20th century for concentration camps.

And what we have right now is just these facilities where people are held indefinitely — not because they’ve committed a crime, but because of either who they are or where they’re from. And the conditions inside are really, really God awful. People are dying, being tortured, subjected to solitary confinement, have zero or no access or very little access to medical care. Sometimes they don’t see the sun for weeks at a time.

What do we call these? I think whitewashing them using this bureaucratic language of “detention center” sort of masks over the reality that people suffer inside of them.

LAUREN GILGER: So, you mentioned how quickly growing this industry is, especially under the Trump administration, but it really is an industry that’s been growing over the last few decades. Put this into context for us in terms of what this looks like now and what it’s looked like in recent history here.

JOHN WASHINGTON: Right. So, the number of people who were detained before the turn of the last century was in the typically in the 10,000 range. And that really started ramping up after 9/11 and through successive administrations on both sides of the partisan divide.

We saw a number of really important key steps in the Clinton and Obama administrations to expand the footprint of immigration detention. And then it absolutely went into warp speed under the second Trump administration.

Last summer, with the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, there was $45 billion over four years dedicated specifically to expanding immigration detention. Right now, after this summer’s reconciliation bill, the Trump administration has through 2029 approximately $240 billion for immigration enforcement. That’s almost a quarter of a trillion dollars.

And a lot of that is being used to build out and buy more detention capacity. And those numbers are bearing out. The beginning of the Trump administration, there was 39,000-some people held. Right now, there’s a little bit over 65,000. And the goal of this administration is to hit 108,000 people detained at any given time in these detention camps.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. OK. So, the main story here though you’re trying to tell in this book is sort of the antidote to that, right? Like how communities are actively fighting back against these and successfully often. Tell us about one of those communities. I know you talked to and visited many.

JOHN WASHINGTON: Yeah, so there is a very concerted pushback against immigration detention. Immigration detention is actually one of the lynchpins of this system. So, you can’t have people making arrests if there’s nowhere to put them. And so that is why so many communities have targeted immigration detention.

There is another reason, however, and that’s because people just kind of don’t want them in their backyard. And that is true for both Democratic and Republican, deep-red conservative, MAGA strongholds.

And we’ve seen this in places like Social Circle, Georgia. This is a community that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the last election. And yet, as soon as it was announced that there was going to be one of these mega detention centers, possibly capacity of 10,000 people, they’re like, “Whoa, we don’t want this here.”

It was a form of NIMBYism that I think people have been harnessing on both sides of the political divide to say like, “OK, we can work with you if you don’t want a detention center, and we can try to shut this down.”

And there have been a lot of wins recently. Think of some of the warehouse models that we’ve seen, even in Arizona. Surprise is right now the development of that purchased warehouse for $70 million that caught the local community completely unawares. They stepped up and pushed back really hard, and right now, they’ve at least temporarily stopped it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, happening right here in our backyard. I want to ask you about the approach you take in this book because it’s called “How to Close a Camp.” Like, this is quite literally and very explicitly like a guide almost for how people are doing this and how you think others should be doing it as well. I wonder how you view your role here as a journalist and as an advocate. Like, where do you think that line stands today?

JOHN WASHINGTON: Yeah, well, first of all, I think this is a classic example of what we call solutions journalism. I am reporting on a number of different communities who have done this work, who see real harms being committed, who see themselves, their communities and their neighbors targeted and want it to stop. And I explore that history, the current context and what they’re doing. That is just something that journalists have always done.

I think, of course, that a lot of people might question whether I have stake in the game. I’d push back on that. I don’t think this is a partisan issue. I think human rights are not something that fall on either the Republican or the Democratic side, or independent, or whatever.

I don’t think advocating for and calling out harms against a specifically targeted population because of who they are is actually advocacy. I think if anything, it’s just calling for basic human decency and the upholding of human rights standards.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, we’ll leave it there. John Washington is a journalist, author of the new book “How to Close a Camp,” as well as a staff writer for Lookout. John, thank you so much for coming back on The Show. Appreciate it very much.

JOHN WASHINGTON: Thanks, Lauren. Always glad to talk to you.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Both APS and SRP report breaking demand records this summer, delivering more energy than they ever have before during the peak of the Valley’s summer heat. And higher temperatures and more demand for electricity mean higher energy bills for utility customers. A new report finds many households across the country cannot afford those bills, including in Arizona. Elizabeth Berg is a policy analyst at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute in the Heat Policy Innovation Hub. She’s also the lead author of the paper titled “The Cost of Keeping Cool: Energy Affordability and Extreme Heat.” She joins me to talk about what she found. And Elizabeth, what stands out to you from this new research?

ELIZABETH BERG: Sure. So, our analysis largely took a pretty broad look at the intersecting impacts of extreme heat and energy burdens. I’d say one of the main takeaways is that energy poverty is extremely common. So, we looked at this along a few metrics, but broadly, we were looking at what percentage of households have to spend an unaffordable amount of their income, so more than 6%, just on energy bills. And while it varies slightly year to year, we found that about one in three households is in this position of having to spend an unaffordable amount just on their monthly utility expenses.

MARK BRODIE: What are the implications of that, that so many households are basically running up bills for energy that they can’t afford to pay?

ELIZABETH BERG: I mean, it just puts people in a really tough position of making kind of impossible choices. So, it puts these households in the position of needing to choose between maintaining a safe living environment, making sure that they are running cooling when they need, heating when they need, and paying for other necessities.

MARK BRODIE: Did you find that the bills tend to be highest in either the winter or the summer, depending on which part of the country they’re in, as opposed to in the spring or in the fall?

ELIZABETH BERG: That is one thing that we looked at. At least from an academic perspective, a lot of people talk about energy burdens in an annual context, but of course, we pay our bills monthly. So, we were trying to look at how often, even if someone comes out totally fine at the end of the year, how often people are still facing a couple months or seasons of unaffordable burden. And, yeah, nationally, it’s either the winter or the summer when costs tend to peak. In most states, winter is the most expensive month. However, that — we were finding that in the warmer parts of the country, Arizona included, one of seven states in this category, summertime is the season with the highest energy bills.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so to the point you were just making about how a lot of academics look at this annually, but of course, we pay our bills monthly. You found that in Arizona, generally the annual energy bill was not among the highest in the country, although if you talk to folks here, this time of year, bills are really, really high. So, is that just a sort of an accounting issue of how the data were looked at as opposed to what folks are actually paying sort of on a month-to-month basis?

ELIZABETH BERG: We’re always kind of restricted at looking at average conditions. There are a lot of factors at play that can vary regionally that will shape kind of where we see some of these hotspots of really high energy costs. So, climate is one of them. If you’re somewhere with really extreme temperatures, you’re going to be doing more to cool or to heat your home. Some of it comes down to the cost of residential energy, as well as what type of fuel are you using. Are you in an area that’s entirely powered by electricity? Do you rely on natural gas? These all have different costs. But one thing we found, when you talk about energy poverty, which is looking not just at the overall bills, but how that compares to incomes, on that basis, things are much more consistent across the country, and it often tracks with income. So, we were still finding that a sizable portion, a quarter to a third of homes, were in this position of having unaffordable bills almost wherever we looked.

MARK BRODIE: The energy cost issue is an interesting one, and I wonder what kind of relationship you found between how expensive or inexpensive energy is and how much energy is actually being used. I wonder if you found places that maybe have more expensive energy and people maybe aren’t using a ton of it, but because of the cost of energy, their bills are higher, or vice versa?

ELIZABETH BERG: So, one part of our analysis was to specifically look at how the cost, not of all home energy expenditures, but specifically the cost of cooling or the cost of running air conditioning, has varied by county, but also has been changing over time. And while the places that are spending the most on air conditioning tend to be places that have higher climates, we were finding that it’s areas where residential electricity rates are growing seemed to be the places that are facing kind of this recent affordability crisis or facing more recent increases, rather than a mechanic driven by kind of demand or usage alone. So, California is a state that really stands out in our analysis. They’ve had a lot of recent increases in electricity rates. A lot of that was due to having to pay for upgrades to their grid to make it more resilient to wildfires, but those costs are passed down to the consumers. And we found, we looked from 2018 to 2024, and there are some counties in California that were increasing, their cost just of cooling was increasing by, you know, more than $50 a year.

MARK BRODIE: Well, and you also found that a lot of counties in Arizona, the cost of cooling is going up as well. Did you find that that is mostly related to the cost of energy? Is it just because it’s hotter, it’s getting warmer here and people need to use more energy? Like, do you have a sense of why those costs in Arizona might be going up?

ELIZABETH BERG: So, on a long-term basis, a lot of it has to do with temperatures. Just when we’re looking at the last 6 to 8 years or so, most of the increase itself has been due to increases in cost. And yes, Arizona is one of the states that stood out as having several counties with pretty significant increases in the cost of cooling. I pulled one example for you. In the Phoenix area, we found that the cost of cooling for an average household in 2024 was about $120 more than it would have been at the same house for the same family in 2018, just 6 years earlier.

MARK BRODIE: So, a lot of utilities talk about programs they have to try to help folks who are maybe struggling to pay their bills or falling behind on their energy bills. Did you find that those programs are effective? Like, do they have the intended effect?

ELIZABETH BERG: So, while looking at the impact of these programs was a bit outside of the scope of our analysis, one thing that we did look at is where protections exist, and specifically where seasonal protections exist. How often do utilities or states offer additional support during the times of year when costs are most likely to increase, so when temperatures are really, really hot or really, really cold? And we found that throughout the country on a state and federal level, there is just much more support for energy affordability and energy access during the winter than there is during the summer.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so given the realities of energy costs being what they are and temperatures being what they are, what do we do about this? How do we try to make it so that households are better able to pay their energy bills and not be too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter?

ELIZABETH BERG: I think one thing that we’re really trying to emphasize with this report is that access to cooling is like a lifesaving necessity. In a lot of cases, I think the way some of this policy is set up almost treats that as a bit more of a luxury, you can keep things cool to be more comfortable. And we’re really trying to emphasize that in a lot of places, we’re way past that point, and people are trying to reduce cooling or not have access to air conditioning to an extent that is actually threatening their health and well-being. So, I think it’s a bit of a perspective shift there.

MARK BRODIE: All right. Well, Elizabeth, thanks so much for the conversation. I really appreciate it.

ELIZABETH BERG: You’re very welcome. It was great to talk to you.

MARK BRODIE: Elizabeth Berg is a policy analyst at Duke University’s Heat Policy Innovation Hub.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. ASU is back in session, which means hordes of students are heading to campus, unpacking their dorm rooms, and figuring out how to get to their classes. And it also means hordes of girls are getting ready to rush, that is, rush sororities, and they don’t look exactly like they used to.

[CLIP FROM “FRIENDS” PLAYS]

PHOEBE BUFFAY: You know, boyfriends and girlfriends are gonna come and go, but this is for life.

LAUREN GILGER: Social media is riddled with videos of sorority girls dancing, flipping, and lip-syncing their hearts out in sometimes really impressive routines. Rush is increasingly being sponsored by big brands like Nike, Sephora, and Dunkin’. But our next guest this morning says it’s not really about any of that flashy rush talk content, it’s about finding community. Tami Shaw is a sorority recruitment coach who helps girls here and all over the country get into the house of their dreams. She was in Alpha Chi Omega at ASU in the early 1980s, and she told me getting into a sorority is about more than looking pretty and being able to dance.

TAMI SHAW: When people say it’s a beauty show, I kind of take offense to that. Although it’s nice to think that we are all beauty queens, but that’s really not the truth of it.

LAUREN GILGER: What is the truth of it? What are sororities judging you on?

TAMI SHAW: Well, they’re not really judging you, but they’re looking to see if you’re a good fit. And what do you think, Lauren, is the single most important thing that will help determine your success or failure during sorority recruitment?

LAUREN GILGER: What would it be? I don’t know. I mean, like I want to say something cynical, like your Instagram profile, but it’s probably like small talk, right? Being able to be friendly?

TAMI SHAW: Well, those are certainly part of it, and your social media, certainly we didn’t have that 10 years ago, but it’s your grades. Your grades are going to determine your success, and you can’t fudge on that. The school will send a report to the sororities, and we’re looking at that to make sure what’s on the application matches what the student provided at the time they were admitted to the college.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. OK. So, there’s some backgrounding involved in this.

TAMI SHAW: The smarter sororities that are doing a really good job at vetting everybody will catch that.

LAUREN GILGER: Such an online generation, this one coming up that you’re coaching right now. I mean, how do you make sure that they are representing themselves online on their social media in the way they want to be represented?

TAMI SHAW: Right. Well, I usually start working with a girl when she’s a senior in high school. And by then, they already have a lot of pictures on their Instagram, and their mothers will say to me, “Please tell her to take that picture down.” And I will look. I’ve seen it all, trust me. It’s not really typical that I have to tell them to take something down. I mean, obviously, if there’s alcohol and you’re in ninth grade, that’s probably not a good look for you. But social media really has changed the game.

LAUREN GILGER: When you say you’ve seen it all, what do you mean?

TAMI SHAW: Well, if a mom calls me and is interested in hiring me, I always ask for the daughter’s Instagram handle first because I have to do my homework as well. And if I get on there and it’s kind of a train wreck, these kids, they just live every minutia online, and there are some things that we don’t need to see, right? And I’ve raised kids, too, and they’ve been in Greek life, too. But if you’re oversharing way too much and you look to be growing up too fast, that’s something I really can’t fix.

LAUREN GILGER: What’s the biggest challenge today, Tami, in coaching these girls who want to get into a specific sorority, maybe a very exclusive one?

TAMI SHAW: Well, it’s no different than getting into any of them. The biggest issue for me today is these kids have lived through COVID. They’re very adept at texting, but they’re not super adept at conversation skills. They truly aren’t. And they don’t know how to have a conversation with a stranger.

LAUREN GILGER: So what, you coach them on small talk essentially?

TAMI SHAW: Oh, absolutely. I know the questions they’re going to be asked. We kind of role play their answers, and I tell them the best way to answer a question. I’m not asking them to lie or misrepresent themselves, but have you heard of something called an elevator pitch?

LAUREN GILGER: Yes.

TAMI SHAW: Well, none of these girls have. And I have to tell them what an elevator pitch is, and I say to them, pretend you’re going to the 32nd floor of the building and you’re riding in the elevator with a girl in a sorority that you wish to be in. You have to sell yourself before it gets to the 32nd floor, and you have to know how to talk about yourself because if you don’t sell yourself, nobody will want to buy you.

LAUREN GILGER: Want to buy you. How did you get into sorority coaching, Tami? I understand you were in a sorority at ASU years ago.

TAMI SHAW: So, I was in a sorority at Arizona State, and a couple years after I graduated, I was tapped to be an advisor. So, sororities and fraternities everywhere have adult advisors, and I was working as an elementary school librarian in Scottsdale. This was in 2004, and one of the teachers came in about this time of year, actually, and she was very upset. And she said, “Tami, I know you’re in a sorority. I wasn’t in one in college. My daughter is going through rush at the University of Arizona, and she’s crying. I don’t know the words she’s using, I don’t understand any of it. Would you please talk to her?” And I knew her daughter, so I called her. And let me tell you about this girl, Lauren. Horizon High School, 4.0, National Honor Society, captain of varsity pom, all the things that any sorority would want on paper.

LAUREN GILGER: Right.

TAMI SHAW: And I said, “Well, tell me about what you’re talking about at these parties.” And she started explaining, and I’m thinking to myself, red flag, red flag, red flag. Oh no. They don’t know how to talk about themselves. And I think when you’re nervous and you’re 18 and you’ve got a girl that you don’t know on the other side of the couch and you’re telling stories and you sound really funny and you’ve got diarrhea of the mouth, and you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh my gosh, I’m making her laugh, she likes me.” Well, you might not be saying the things that they want to hear. So, being funny is not the same as presenting who you are, what your values are, and what you’re looking for in Greek life.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so you can coach them through that. I mean, you say this is more than a beauty pageant, you kind of don’t like it when people think of rush in that way. Is there room, though, for individuality in this? Like, it looks like when you watch these videos of sorority girls rushing, like very cookie-cutter, right?

TAMI SHAW: Right. Well, it can look like that. I know the TikTok and the dancing and all of that. I tell my clients, “Don’t be fooled.” They put all the pretty girls in the front. They have all the girls that were dancers in high school in the front. Everybody in the back, that’s who you need to focus on, not so much shiny pennies in the front.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so we have to talk about how much this process has changed in the last, honestly, like decade, like you said.

TAMI SHAW: It’s really just changed since the advent of the internet. So, when I went to ASU back in the early ’80s, the sororities didn’t know who I was until I walked in the door. And now, we know everything about you before we’ve even met you. It’s all online.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, you think even today and even in this environment in which it looks very, you know, specific online, that there’s still real value to this?

TAMI SHAW: There is, and I know there are a lot of stereotypes, and some of that can be true or look to be true, but I know the other side and I know how genuine it is. And these freshmen come in, and man, they want belonging. They want to continue maybe having a friend group like they had at Xavier College Prep or Notre Dame Prep. They’re looking for that. I mean, it’s daunting to go and maybe not know anybody, and you’ll get it by joining a sorority. And I hear a lot, people will say, “Well, I didn’t have to buy my friends in college.”

LAUREN GILGER: Right, you hear that criticism for sure.

TAMI SHAW: You hear it, and I’m going to tell you, Lauren, I did join a sorority, so I guess you could say I did buy my friends, and let me tell you, it was worth every penny I spent. I’m 65 years old. I’ve got some best friends still from my pledge days at ASU. They were the bridesmaids in my wedding. They were the women that I called when I had my first child. It lasts for a lifetime.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, we’ll leave it there. Tami Shaw, sorority recruitment coach, joining us this rush season. Tami, thank you so much for coming on The Show. I really appreciate it.

TAMI SHAW: My pleasure, thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.