Extreme weather events are becoming the new normal as our climate
changes. Rising temperatures particularly in the summer, fierce storms in the
winters, and poor air quality are just some examples of how climate change is
affecting the West Coast. As non-profit housing providers, we need to be aware
of how extreme weather events affecting our tenants and shelter guests,
and come up with ways to support them. We do this through direct tenant
supports and by retrofitting our buildings to make them more resilient and
energy efficient.
Lookout Housing and Health Society provides shelter and housing along
the continuum of housing from emergency shelters to low-end of market units. We
also have outreach teams who support people experiencing homelessness, who may
not be accessing our shelters or the other programs we offer.
The past few summers have hit record level temperatures on the West
Coast. For example our Deep Woods outreach team, delivered water and other supplies
to individuals living deep in the woods and monitored their health for signs of
dehydration and other heat related health issues. Also, Lookout has an open
door policy, where people experiencing homelessness can access our programs for
heat recovery and respite.
Many of our tenants have various health challenges and need to be
monitored, as extreme heat can affect their moods, agitate existing health
conditions, and affect their overall health. One of the ways we supported our
tenants was to together come up with ideas to help cool there space in extreme
heat such as using ice and supplying them with fans so they could
set up “swamp coolers” in their units to stay cool during the heat of the day.
These are just a few examples of how we have developed processes to support our
tenants in the context of climate change.
Resiliency in the non-profit sector means, ensuring our tenants are
better able to cope with extreme weather events. By working together we can
better serve our tenants and communities through education, partnerships and
ongoing support from our funders and fellow housing providers.
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