This is one of two stories examining extreme heat in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The project was a collaboration between KVPR and Public Health Watch.SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, California — On a recent 99-degree day in Lamont, a small community outside of Bakersfield, the whir of fans drowned out all other noise inside the rental home where Mario Garcia lives.Ceiling fans spun in the kitchen and living room. A standing fan blasted air across the worn couch. More fans hummed inside the three small bedrooms Garcia shares with his family of eight. But the house was still hot. Enough to make anyone break a sweat just standing or sitting still, which is what Garcia and his daughters, Ruby, 14, and Krystal, 17, were doing. The air blowing through the fans was almost as warm as the air outdoors.“If it gets like 100, 103 [degrees] … it’s cooler outside under a tree than inside the house,” Garcia said. “It gets really hot,” daughter Ruby agreed. “Like soup.” KVPR Radio: Renters and HeatBy Joshua Yeager and Claudia Boyd-BarrettConsidering that almost 30% of California renters don’t have any kind of air conditioning, the Garcias might be regarded as fortunate. But, like many older homes in California’s Central Valley, the Garcias’ house has a form of air conditioning called an evaporative cooler, or swamp cooler, which passes air across a wet filter to cool down the interior temperature. The swamp cooler is too small to reach most of the house and, as has been typical with this type of device, doesn’t reduce indoor temperatures to a comfortable level once the thermometer reaches into the 100s outside. That happens often in this region during the summer months.This summer has been particularly scorching for the Garcia family, as well as for others who lack adequate cooling systems inside their homes. During the first half of July, temperatures hit daily records across the San Joaquin Valley, including 114 degrees in Bakersfield and Fresno on July 7. Nearby Hanford recorded its longest consecutive stretch of days at or above 105 degrees in early July. More extreme heat is expected throughout the rest of the summer. Experts agree that the future will be even worse as the climate continues to get hotter, driven mostly by burning fossil fuels. Without reducing emissions or increasing people’s access to adequate air conditioning, excessive heat could kill more than 11,000 Californians annually by 2050, researchers predict.Credit: Isabel SimpsonYet no matter how high the mercury climbs, renters like the Garcias can’t force their landlords to install air conditioners or take other measures to protect them.Although landlords must maintain AC units they have installed, California law doesn’t require them to provide it, and there’s no upper limit on temperatures inside rental properties. Advocates are calling on local and state officials to act. They point out that California law requires landlords to provide heat during the winter months so tenants can keep their homes at or above 70 degrees. Given California’s increasingly hot climate, they say, it’s time to protect tenants from high temperatures as well.So far, policymakers have dragged their feet on pursuing such protections, even though lawmakers recently moved to curb exposure to high indoor air temperatures at work. An Assembly bill in 2022 that would have set a maximum temperature standard for residential buildings and required landlords to maintain adequate cooling stalled in the state Senate. Instead, the legislature passed a weaker bill directing the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to come up with policy recommendations to establish and implement a maximum heat standard. Final recommendations are due January 1, and would still require legislative action to become law.In a draft report released in June, HCD recommended an indoor maximum temperature limit between 79 and 82 degrees, but only for new construction. In response, 40 community and advocacy groups wrote a letter urging the agency to extend the recommendation to all residential dwellings so that Californians exposed to excessive heat in existing buildings aren’t left out.“We want to make sure that everyone can benefit from these recommendations,” said Emma De La Rosa, regional policy manager for Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, an advocacy group working on extreme heat issues in the Central Valley. “It’s just a huge burden to the community if folks can’t even be in the comfort of their own homes without fearing their health being impacted because of the lack of infrastructure and the lack of policies that require cooling.”The organizations also want the agency to find ways to help property owners make their buildings more heat resilient and to incentivize installation of heat pumps. These devices can both heat and cool a home by moving heat from the inside to the outside or vice versa, with the help of a refrigerant and compressor. They operate on electricity and are more energy efficient, cheaper to run and better for the climate than air conditioning. Assistance could include direct funding, tax credits or technical advice. Advocates also want measures to prohibit landlords from raising rents or evicting tenants to pay for cooling-related upgrades.Landlords have resisted calls for extending indoor air maximums to existing buildings, citing cost and infrastructure barriers. Thomas Bannon, CEO of the California Apartment Association (CAA), a trade association representing over 60,000 apartment owners and property managers, said that a large portion of California properties were built prior to the development of more modern energy efficiency standards. In fact, an estimated 60% of California housing units were built prior to 1980. Some lack the electrical capacity to cope with even a window air conditioning unit, Bannon said.“The concept makes sense,” he said. “The problem is that when you get to the practicality of trying to bring the policy into reality, it becomes very, very difficult.”Bannon said his organization is open to the establishment of a maximum indoor temperature standard for new construction, although he cautioned that such a policy would also add to building costs.Mario Garcia, center, sits with his two daughters and son next to a fan inside his home in Lamont, California. Credit: Claudia Boyd-BarrettWhen staying home is dangerousOn the northeast side of Bakersfield, Jaymee Seeger grew increasingly panicked as outside temperatures reached 106 degrees and her apartment’s thermostat ticked up to 90. It was early July, and Seeger’s air conditioning unit hadn’t worked properly for over a week. Her property managers seemed in no rush to fix it. In fact, it would take several more days and pleading from Seeger before the device was repaired.Seeger, 69, had a portable AC unit, but that only cooled a small patch of her living room and dramatically increased her electricity bills, which she couldn’t afford. She has a bad hip and lung problems that flare up in the heat. She’d taken to driving around in her car with the AC running on some afternoons because her apartment was so uncomfortable. She worried about her cat, Piwacket, whom she once stuck briefly in the fridge to cool down.“I’m scared,” she said, as she contemplated a forecast of 115 degrees for the upcoming weekend. “It gets like an oven in here.”High temperatures can be deadly. Prolonged exposure can lead to heat exhaustion and heat stroke and exacerbate underlying health conditions. Heat is particularly dangerous for older adults, pregnant people and young children.The San Joaquin Valley’s notoriously bad air quality adds to the problem. Extreme heat worsens air quality, which in turn aggravates the risk of heart, respiratory and other health issues — especially if people are opening windows and letting dirty air inside to try to stay cool. Swamp coolers also bring outside pollution into the house.A recent report by the California Department of Insurance found that at least 460 Californians died during seven major heat events over the past decade, and more than 10,000 people went to emergency rooms because of heat-related illnesses. People in poorer communities suffered higher rates of death and illness than people in wealthier areas. Those affected were disproportionately Black, Latino and Native American. It’s likely many of these incidents occurred due to indoor heat exposure. An analysis of National Weather Service data by the Cincinnati Enquirer estimated that almost half of the more than 3,000 people in the United States known to have perished from heat-related ailments over the past two decades died at home. Because heat-related deaths are hard to track, experts believe the actual number is likely much higher. Renter strugglesRenters face outsize risk. Twenty-nine percent of California renters, compared to 20% of homeowners, do not have central or room air conditioners, according to a report by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Because renters’ incomes tend to be lower than those of homeowners, they’re also harder pressed to pay for their own air conditioning units or other improvements that could reduce indoor temperatures. Many low-income renters also live in old or substandard buildings that lack insulation and up-to-date mechanisms for keeping out heat. That makes the homes more prone to extreme temperatures. It also makes them more difficult and expensive to cool, even if they have air conditioning. People who are strapped financially may avoid using air conditioning when they need it because they can’t afford the electricity bills.Wendy Lozano is a community health worker with the nonprofit Visión y Compromiso. She knocks on doors across Kern County to talk to people about staying safe in the heat. Lozano said she frequently encounters renters who don’t have air conditioning, whose AC units are broken or who limit their use of it because they’re worried about the cost. Some develop symptoms of heat illness but don’t realize it, she said.“They can suffer dizziness, nausea, vomiting, cramps,” she said in Spanish. “We tell them … it’s because of the heat. It’s not simply nausea or dizziness because you didn’t have breakfast.”Emprezz Nontzikelelo clutches a water bottle outside her East Bakersfield home on a blistering July afternoon. Credit: Joshua Yeager/KVPREmprezz Nontzikelelo works with the MLKCommUNITY to give out extreme heat “pocket guides” to residents in the predominantly Latino and Black neighborhood bordering east and southeast Bakersfield, where she lives. Many of the homes are old and rundown, and she hears horror stories about people getting overheated.“You hear about people passing out,” she said. “The elderly, I hear about them suffering, ending up in hospitals, having strokes — and that’s heat strokes and neurological strokes. Their animals are suffering.” Lozano, the community health worker, advises people to seek out local cooling centers and to ask their landlords to provide air conditioning if they don’t have it. People with low incomes may also qualify for utility assistance programs through the state or Kern County, although several renters interviewed said they struggled to pay their bills even with government assistance. Some people are reluctant to ask their landlords for air conditioning, fearing it could lead to a rent increase or eviction. That’s why Mario Garcia hasn’t asked for better cooling in his Lamont home. Rents in the Bakersfield area have soared in the past few years. Garcia, who relies on disability benefits because of a work injury, can’t afford a higher rent. It’s also why Seeger, who’s semi-retired, said she was wary of being too demanding of her apartment property managers. Under current law, landlords generally have 30 days to fix air conditioning units that are already installed.“You want to be reasonable about these things, but something like this, air conditioning, that is literally life and death,” Seeger said. “The law falls short, and it needs to be changed.”A push for local actionImpatient with slow progress by the state, some community advocates are pushing for solutions locally. Leadership Counsel is asking the city of Bakersfield and Kern County to include maximum indoor air temperature standards in their housing policies, which the city and county are updating. The organization also wants the city to put more money toward rehabilitation and weatherization programs so that property owners can retrofit old homes to make them more heat resistant. Other measures they’re calling for include programs to facilitate installation of cooling systems such as heat pumps, better enforcement of existing housing codes, more legal aid for tenants and increased utility bill assistance, said Sandra Placencia, policy advocate with Leadership Council. The city of Bakersfield did launch a home repair and weatherization program last year with $1 million in federal stimulus funding that offers up to $15,000 in free assistance to low-income homeowners. Free weatherization and energy efficiency upgrades are also available to low-income Kern County renters through the Community Action Partnership of Kern, which can include installation of AC units. However, the program is not accepting applications due to high demand. Administrator Wilfredo Cruz, Jr. said the program helps between 140 to 300 people a year, and he expects applications to reopen in October or November. His organization also offers financial assistance with energy bills, for which it is accepting new applicants. Additionally, the Bakersfield City Council allocated $350,000 in November to create an eviction-protection program. Placencia said these are all steps in the right direction, but don’t go far enough. Meanwhile, the city and county’s latest proposed housing plan updates contain no mention of establishing a maximum indoor air temperature. Bakersfield Vice Mayor Andrae Gonzales agreed that indoor heat has become a pressing issue for the city’s residents. The city’s home repair and weatherization program has seen heavy demand, with 175 inquiries in the first week and almost half of all applications related to cooling systems. He said there have been no formal discussions by the city council about an indoor temperature ordinance, but he’s had internal conversations on the topic with city staff. “I think that it’s definitely something we need to explore,” he said. “Especially hearing from many of my constituents who are really suffering right now through these extreme heat waves.”Elsewhere, momentum for renter heat protections is growing. The city of Los Angeles recently began exploring the feasibility of requiring cooling for rentals. Palm Springs has mandated air conditioning since 2018. Outside of California, Phoenix, Arizona, and Clark County, Nevada — home to Las Vegas — have established maximum indoor temperature rules.Battling the heatA cooler in the home of Mario Garcia in Lamont. Garcia’s family fills the cooler with ice to make cold drinks during heat waves. Credit: Claudia Boyd-BarrettBack at the Garcias’ house, the family was getting ready for an upcoming heat wave. A 10-gallon plastic water barrel sat atop a stool in the kitchen, ready to be loaded with ice. Mario’s wife, Elvia, was stocking up on drinks and ice cream at the store. His daughter Krystal planned to put ice packs in the freezer to place on her back and stomach. “We have to stay hydrated,” she said, standing next to a fan in her darkened bedroom, the blinds drawn to keep out the sun. “We remind each other, okay, don’t keep the lights on because you will feel the heat in here.”Mario said he’s trying to teach himself how to install solar panels. His goal is to one day put some on the house and connect them to an AC unit. But that remains a distant vision for now. In the meantime, he and his family have to focus on staying cool through another scorching summer.“I’m just gonna turn on the fans and hope for the best,” he said.Claudia Boyd-Barrett is a journalist based in Ventura, California.