In the weeks after a deadly heat wave swept western North America last summer, staff from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund program reached out to housing providers, community organizations and tenant advocates to learn how to better prepare for another extreme heat event like the one that killed more than 100 people in Oregon.
Stateside, governments in Washington and Oregon – which recorded at least 112 and 116 deaths, respectively – leveraged existing programs and created new ones to direct funds to distribute air conditioners to vulnerable populations. But no similar action on cooling devices has taken place in B.C., where government has pledged only to review the issue over coming months.
The Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction said in a statement that it already has a program through which, in extraordinary circumstances, British Columbians on income assistance can receive an unspecified amount of “crisis supplement” funding, such as to purchase a fan during a heat wave.
Gabrielle Peters, a member of the Vancouver City Planning Commission, was on the death review panel but withdrew her name from the final report in protest. She noted that a program to provide medical equipment already exists, and that government could add air conditioners as a temporary item immediately while it investigated longer-term solutions.Both Ontario and Toronto have similar programs that do include air conditioning.
“I think the public is learning a bit about the barriers to diagnosis in real time with long COVID. There are many disabled people who are not yet diagnosed,” said Ms. Peters, noting that nearly a million British Columbians. “Any time we add in layers like this, we add in openings for discrimination and, thus, inequitable access.”
“Having pieces in place, having a community that raises their voices and expects action and caring concern from government and people who represent them, it’s really put us in a great position to be able to implement these programs and make meaningful change so that stuff like this doesn’t happen in the future,” Ms. Reed said.
louise18914038 Most have no a/c - it’s difficult for renters to add a/c to a unit
Many condo buildings do not allow owners to install AC systems (at their own expense) because of outdated and poorly worded bylaws. It is almost impossible to get 70% of owners to vote for a bylaw change. Government needs to make those bylaws void and unenforceable. Only answer!