On a summer day with temperatures pushing into the 90s, Heather Ronne’s two kids eagerly lined up for the ice cream truck.
“We actually saw it driving down the road and they were freaking out," Ronne says.
They’re in Columbia Falls. In August, several Montana cities set daily high temperature records. It was the hottest month on record in parts of Washington and Oregon, too. This after hundreds in the region died from heat-related causes in 2021 and 2022. Most died in homes without air conditioning.
Large cities across the state are working to set up cooling centers, but in smaller towns like Columbia Falls, those efforts aren’t happening. And there are no public spaces with air conditioning.
This summer, Ronne had to take her three-year-old son to the emergency room because it was so hot in their apartment.
"All of a sudden, he’s throwing up and very tired. So, I took him in immediately,” she says.
Nationwide, more than half a million public and low income housing units like Ronne’s don’t have air conditioning. The Pew Research Center’s Drew DeSilver says a lot of them are in the Rockies or Pacific Northwest.
“So a lot of those places, they didn’t need air conditioning, so a lot of homes didn’t come with air conditioning,” DeSilver says.
Lots of low-income people use vouchers from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, to help pay their rent. But while HUD requires housing it funds to provide heat, it doesn’t have dedicated funding to install air conditioning in low-income housing.
Requiring air conditioning would be challenging. HUD declined to make anyone available for interviews on the topic, but has said it’s contemplating a cooling requirement.
Public housing infrastructure is already crumbling, with various estimates putting the maintenance backlog at roughly $80 billion.
“So that’s why this concern about, financially, how does it get done, is a big concern,” Bridget Simmons, with the National Housing Law Project says.
Many states have assistance programs to help people with low incomes pay their heating bills, but that kind of help for cooling is rare.
And it’s not just a matter of comfort. Low-income and rural Americans are more likely to have health conditions that make them susceptible to heat, says Dr. Lori Byron with the group Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate.
"People with multiple medical problems, with chronic diseases like diabetes, they are more likely to die in a heat wave, especially if they don’t have access to cool air.”
Many states have assistance programs to help people with low incomes pay their heating bills, but that kind of help for cooling is rare. Low-income and rural Americans are more likely to have health conditions that make them susceptible to heat.
Large cities across the country have been setting up public cooling centers to reduce heat related deaths. Byron says they’re needed here in Montana now, too.
“Cooling centers, there aren’t really any set up yet.”
Large cities across the state are working to set up cooling centers, but in smaller towns like Columbia Falls, those efforts aren’t happening. And there are no public spaces with air conditioning.
Inside Heather Ronne’s apartment in Columbia Falls, her kids are devouring their ice cream treats. Ronne, who works as a housekeeper, says she was able to afford a “swamp cooler,” which cools the air through evaporation. It hasn’t helped much. She wanted to buy a cheap window air conditioner, but those aren’t allowed.
“I thought it was ridiculous because we all have children here and it is like a hot box in here.”
She says if she got help to install air conditioning, she’d be happy to cover the extra utilities. She says that would surely be cheaper than another ER visit for her youngest child.
