Right to Cooling Campaign

As the warming climate leads to hotter summer temperatures, workers are facing increased risks from heat. Working class people, particularly those who work outdoors, are most vulnerable to impacts such as health consequences and loss of income. Therefore, it's important to have in place policies which will protect workers. Ithaca's Climate Action Plan recommends policies such as mandating breaks and access to water for workers. Similar policies have already been passed in other regions, such as Phoenix. Our current campaign involves pushing for these policies to be put in place in Ithaca, in line with the recommendations of the City's Climate Action Plan.  We have created a survey which aims to assess worker’s needs so that we can advocate for policy which addresses these.  If you work outdoors or in another environment where you are exposed to heat (such as a restaurant), please fill out this survey, and share with your networks.  (See Spanish version here.) 

While our primary focus at the current time is on worker's rights to cooling, we are also collecting data to help inform a future campaign focused on tenant's rights to cooling. We would appreciate it if you could fill out this survey if you are a tenant in Ithaca, and share with your networks. This will help to inform our future work in pushing for policies to ensure access to cooling for tenants. 

Here are the results for the survey so far. Please note these results are preliminary and will be updated as more responses our received.

The survey results indicate that many tenants, including those who are at increased risk, are negatively impacted by high temperatures in their homes. When asked how often they feel that uncomfortably high summer temperatures in their homes have a negative impact on their life, the most common answers were “often” (11) and “sometimes” (8). When asked whether they consider themselves to be at increased risk of temperature-related illness (e.g. due to being young, elderly, or disabled), about half of respondents indicated that they or someone they live with are at risk. 

Several respondents provided testimonies about experience with extreme heat and its impact on their lives.

“In my previous apartment in Cascadilla St, we had difficulty cooling the apartment due to a lack of suitable windows to use with an air conditioning unit, even a portable one. It caused our utilities to skyrocket because we had to keep our door open to the enclosed but uninsulated porch to use our unit, and it still barely kept the house tolerable during heat waves.” 

“My current apartment is very hard to keep cool. Admittedly I haven't bought quality curtains, but it's also on the third floor with poor airflow (no straight breeze path between windows), an insulating attic above, and old strange windows that don't allow for typical a/c installation. At the moment I have two window a/c units going, one at the opposite end of the apartment and one in the room where I'm sitting, and my desk thermometer still says 82.6 degrees.” 

“I have a chronic illness/disability and am on a handful of medications to manage it. One of those medications puts me at increased risk of heat stroke/heat illness. My apartment is regularly 84 on a “normal” summer day and will presumably tip 90 during an intense heat wave. We have a mini split heat pump, but it’s located in the laundry room, which isn’t occupied by tenants so it goes largely unused. Even when we do turn it on, the location does not manage to decrease temps in the nearest occupied room more than 1-2 degrees. This is horrific design that could have been avoided and tenants could have really benefited from the heat pump’s cooling ability. Even with our warm indoor conditions, I know we have it better than many. I’m deeply concerned about our unhoused community members ability to survive heat waves and outdoor workers (particularly road workers, roof workers, and landscapers) becoming very ill.”