When the weather heats up, Clarence Braun and his wife Holly park their Mercury Grand Marquis in the shade or ride around with the windows down.
“My AC is broken. I just drive if I can find some shade,” Braun said.
Braun is unhoused and has lived out of his car for more than two years. He recognizes that summers in Connecticut have gotten hotter and he has to find different ways to try to keep cool.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon Braun was visiting the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance in Hartford. It acts as a cooling center during extreme heat.
Bottles of Vitamin Water and cold cut sandwiches line the folding table set up in the lobby and a mid-20th century soul music playlist is on the TV.
Braun visits the center often, about once a week for the last four years. On this day he’s wearing a short-sleeve red polo and his hair pulled back in a ponytail. The bracelet from a recent hospital visit is still on his wrist.
While many of the unhoused and those without air conditioning can seek relief from the heat inside of a cooling center, Braun, a Moodus native, said it’s not always easy to get to the centers if you don’t live in a major city. So, he is sometimes forced to find alternatives.
“There's certain spots got a little AC here,” Braun said. “McDonald's, they got AC if you really need to cool down. You know, they don't much like it, but they allow it for a little bit.”
Real solution is housing
The climate crisis is causing warmer temperatures in Connecticut and extended periods of extreme heat are becoming more common. Unhoused residents feel the impact of extreme heat more poignantly, and the state’s response struggles to meet the need for shelter.
Cooling centers are temporary solutions that don’t address the real issue, according to Mark Jenkins, founder of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance
“At the end of the day, there's still just a lack of housing,” Jenkins said. “So whether it be affordable housing, housing, for the you know, unsheltered there is, there's a greater need. There's a greater need over the past few years, that need continues to increase exponentially.”
But, until more housing is available, Connecticut relies on community advocates and town buildings to keep unhoused residents cool.
When the state’s extreme heat protocol is enacted, it drains resources swiftly, Jenkins said. The center becomes a revolving door when it’s hot outside.
“We loaded a pallet of water in here yesterday. It's probably all but gone. That's 48 cases of 40 bottles inside a 12 hour period,” Jenkins said.
About two cases of water remained.
To keep the center open longer, Jenkins has to bring in 15 additional staffers for five more hours each day during a heat wave.
“Now you say, ‘Well, that's a lot of money. Why are you wasting that money?’ But if you do the flip side, and you don't provide those services, and you have people who suffer from heat stroke, if you have people who are passing out on the streets, then there's a cost of emergency services,” Jenkins said.
CT’s different responses to extreme weather
Connecticut extreme heat protocol was established in 2021 and is triggered when the state is expected to experience a multi-day heat wave, with temperatures soaring past 90 degrees for at least three consecutive days.
Activation of the heat protocol has increased since it began. In 2021 and 2022 it was enacted twice. In 2023 and 2024 it was enacted three times.
By the end of July this year, the heat protocol was put in place four times. The first heat wave came earlier too.
Connecticut’s heat response is more of a guideline for towns and cities to follow, according to Bill Turner, Connecticut’s Director of Emergency Management.
“It's really up to the towns if they want to open a cooling center. We basically give them information on what a cooling center should have,” Turner said.
The state works closer with municipalities on cold weather protocol to ensure unhoused individuals are brought inside during winter months. However, there are no overnight shelters during heat waves, Turner said.
State funding goes toward Connecticut’s cold weather protocol, enabling shelters to provide beds nightly. There is no state funding allocated for hot weather emergencies.
All emergency heat care is funded solely by local providers.
A change in to addressing heat
When it comes to the state’s handling of extreme heat, Sarah Fox, CEO of Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, said lawmakers and advocates need to change the way they approach the issue.
“It is where we are heading, recognizing that it's short sighted to just say we need a cold weather emergency response when we know we need extreme weather emergency response across the state,” Fox said.
Connecticut should establish a statewide system, connecting providers in different parts of the state, as is done during cold weather emergencies, Fox said.
“When we're doing our advocacy into the future, it's more about advocating around extreme weather, recognizing that there are you know that whether it is severe cold weather or whether we're experiencing times of extreme heat, that we have both the resources in place,” Fox.
For the first time, Connecticut’s state budget included guaranteed funding for cold weather emergencies, but heat is still unaccounted for, Fox said. Cold weather funding also decreased by more than $1 million, which will mean less shelter beds come cold weather and increased staff burnout across the seasons.
During a mid-July heat wave, the state’s 211 hotline received nearly 1,600 searches for cooling centers on their website. Only 83 of the state’s 169 towns and cities have cooling centers.
