Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Residents and advocates press for faster air‑conditioning upgrades as DHS cites logistical limits to granular reporting
Loading...
Summary
The City Council heard June 3 testimony on a proposed one‑time report about air conditioning in homeless shelters, with DHS saying many sites have cooling rooms and an RFP now requires AC at new sites while residents and advocates demanded faster, enforceable action to protect vulnerable people.
The City Council Committee on General Welfare heard testimony June 3 about Intro 12‑08, a bill requiring a one‑time report on air conditioning in city homeless shelters. Department of Homeless Services officials said the agency has issued an addendum to its open RFP requiring air conditioning at new shelter sites, and that a majority of existing sites have either site‑wide air conditioning or a cooling room. DHS witnesses also warned the committee that producing the highly granular data requested would be difficult because shelter maintenance is managed by many nonprofit providers and DHS does not maintain a centralized repair tracking system.
Shelter residents and advocates described unsafe sleeping conditions and urged faster work. "For almost 2 weeks now we've had no AC in my room... We only have 2 electric fans for the entire room," said Noam Cohen of Vocal, who testified that he shares a large dormitory room with 22 roommates at a shelter run by CAMBA. Speaking during public testimony, multiple witnesses described elderly and disabled residents exposed to high indoor heat and urged enforcement measures for providers that refuse repairs.
Nonprofits and legal advocates supported Intro 12‑08 as a first step but urged the council to move beyond a single report. Deborah Berkman of the New York Legal Assistance Group told the committee that extreme heat is a leading risk factor for heat‑related death and that many shelters lack adequate cooling. "Each summer, more than 500 New Yorkers die as a result of extreme heat," she said in testimony citing the city's own climate office research; she urged the council to mandate air conditioning for all shelters and to allocate funds to retrofit older buildings.
DHS described its reasonable‑accommodation process for residents with medical needs and said reasonable accommodation requests for in‑unit air conditioning require medical documentation. The agency said some older buildings may lack electrical capacity for window units and that installation is handled case by case. DHS also explained Code Red procedures used during extreme heat to move residents to cooling spaces and to provide fans and outreach.
Advocates asked for the report to include the number and disposition of reasonable‑accommodation requests and the timeframe to fulfill them, and recommended the report analyze reasons units are without AC (electrical capacity, funding, repairs) rather than only list site‑level presence or absence. Council members said they wanted follow‑up data and stronger enforcement and funding options to prevent residents from sleeping in overheated rooms.
Ending: The committee heard repeated public testimony describing dangerous conditions and asked DHS for additional detail; DHS promised follow‑up but also reiterated operational limits to producing highly granular shelter‑level repair histories.
