Hotter Weather Coming to Coachella Valley: Desert Sun Cites PHI’s Healthy Places Index: Extreme Heat Edition

“Agencies that have helped low-income people pay their power bills for decades are stretching what could be their last funds — just as sweltering summer heat takes hold in the California desert.

The Trump administration has cut all funding for the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program in its wide-reaching domestic policy bill, officially called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and none has been restored by Congress as they push to finalize it before the Fourth of July holiday.

If no funds are allocated, the risk of heat stroke and even deaths will be “very high, especially for the elderly” if they cannot afford air conditioning, said Karla Lopez del Rio, executive director of Community Action Partnership of Riverside County. “The concern for us is public health cuts related to how grave and dangerous these extreme heat conditions are.”

Her agency, like many across the nation, already can’t help everyone who needs the aid. She has been forced to implement a points system to determine who gets funds. The choices aren’t easy, and the threats are real in both the Coachella and Imperial valleys.

A Desert Sun review found that 14 people died from heat-related causes across Riverside County between July 15 and July 29, 2023. That included two women in their 70s who died in their homes, one in Desert Hot Springs and the other in Indio, when temperatures hit 119 degrees.

In Imperial County, the state’s hottest, 27 people died of heat-exposure-related causes from April through October 2023. Heat-related deaths are notoriously underreported, so the actual numbers are likely much higher. And as climate change takes hold, scorching weather in the California desert is forecast to grow even hotter. UCLA and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California project that portions of the Coachella Valley will have more than 200 days a year above 90 degrees by mid-century.

Thousands of people already can’t pay their bills in Riverside County, the fastest-growing in Southern California, Lopez del Rio said.”

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Originally published by Desert Sun