Heating on cold days is a widespread requirement for rental homes in much of Canada and the US. Air conditioning, not so much. But as extreme heat becomes a growing health threat, pressure is building for a change.
Lawmakers and advocates in several cities are pushing provisions to protect tenants from the hottest days by requiring a maximum indoor temperature.
“Things are changing because they have to, something’s got to give,” said Tara Raghuveer, founding director of the Tenant Union Federation — a national “union of unions” that launched in August. “The emergency in our homes is at a level that is actually untenable.”
New analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found heat-related deaths more than doubled between 1999 and 2023, totalling 21,500 over that period. From 2016 on, the data show steady increases year over year, according to the study published in the medical journal JAMA.
New York City Council member Lincoln Restler, who represents downtown Brooklyn, proposed a bill in July requiring landlords to install and maintain air conditioning units in rental units. From mid-June to mid-September, temperatures inside units must stay below 78 degrees Fahrenheit when temperatures outdoors exceed 81 degrees. If passed, landlords would get four years to make necessary upgrades, or face fines of up to $1,250 each day for non compliance.
In Los Angeles — where a record-breaking heat wave has caused power outages and school closures — county officials approved a motion in January to craft an ordinance that would establish a “safe maximum temperature threshold” for residential rental units, and require them to be “cooling ready” so that tenants can install their own systems.
These follow similar provisions already in effect in mostly hotter parts of the US: Dallas and Houston in Texas, Palm Springs in California, and Montgomery County in Maryland all have some requirement that landlords provide adequate cooling to avoid exceeding a temperature threshold, which varies by place from 80 to 85 degrees. In Phoenix, one of the hottest cities in the US, landlords have to repair A/C units within 10 days of tenants filing a written complaint.
Raghuveer says her group is also pushing for a suite of renter protections, which would include cooling access, as a requirement for landlords with federally backed mortgages for their properties.
To the north, tenant organizations in Canada are pushing similar demands. This summer, advocacy groups from Toronto and Calgaryhave both called for city bylaws that would require landlords to cool properties to 26C (79F). There’s also a push in the Hamilton, Ontario, city council to be the first in Canada to mandate a cap on temperatures inside rentals.
Due to the region’s cooler climate, many older buildings were designed to retain warmth in the winter, making it hard for heat to escape in the summer — especially without air conditioning. “We no longer live in that climate anymore where that is going to work for all 12 months of the year,” said campaigner How-Sen Chong of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, a nonprofit watchdog that supports a 26C cap.
Of the 600 deaths in British Columbia linked to the unprecedented 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, 98% occurred indoors. Most were reported inside homes without adequate cooling systems.
Accounting for Costs
Landlord groups have opposed these maximum temperature proposals, saying the cost of installing cooling systems might force them to raise rents or drive landlords who can’t bear the cost out of the market. Mom-and-pop landlords in particular already face small margins amid rising maintenance and insurance costs, said Alexandra Alvarado, director of marketing and education at the American Apartment Owners Association.
But landlords aren’t necessarily opposed to adding cooling systems — or even mandates, Alvarado said. “What is more up for debate is: Realistically, what is possible and reasonable for property owners to do in that timeframe?” she said, referring to deadlines included in some of the bills to meet requirements. “The other aspect is whether or not the landlord can bill the tenant for utilities.”
Even for units that already have A/C, the costs of paying power bills can be the ultimate hurdle for low-income renters who hesitate to use it.
Nationwide, the annual cost of cooling a home in the US has grown by more than 50% in the last decade due to extreme heat, according to federal data, and a tenth of US households kept their homes at unhealthy or unsafe temperatures in 2020.
“The cost of utilities is growing very rapidly, in a way that I don’t think any of us predicted,” said Kim McCarty, executive director of the Portland-based Community Alliance of Tenants in Oregon. Her state passed a law in 2022 that made it illegal for landlords to prohibit their tenants from installing or using portable A/C units, with a few exceptions.
Both Oregon and Portland also have programs to give out air conditioners to vulnerable residents, but McCarty would also like to see policies that help them lower their energy bills.
A Climate Coalition
As renters’ advocates call for greater legislative change, fighting against landlord opposition is likely an uphill battle, says Kathleen Hoke, a public health law professor at University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
When lawmakers in Kansas City, Missouri, passed legislation creating a tenant bill of rights, groups like KC Tenants tried to add air conditioning into the language, according to Raghuveer, who is also the group’s founding director. Landlords quickly stripped that requirement, and the law passed without it.
“In most urban areas, the landlord kind of lobby, if you will, is pretty strong,” Hoke said. Hoke thinks advocates’ efforts can be more effective by working with climate groups as part of broader resilience strategies. “This is actually an increasing problem because of climate change so I think bringing in advocates from other spaces will allow for amplification of the message,” she said.
There are other tenant protections, too, that might fall into such a package: Some US states ban utility shut-offs for unpaid bills in the middle of a heat wave; a Washington, DC, council member proposed a ban on evictions during extreme heat; and public cooling centers provide another indoor reprieve during the heat.
Design Alternatives
Outside the US and Canada, where air conditioning is less pervasive, policymakers are more likely to turn to design solutions to combat extreme heat. In some European countries, where advocates are concerned about A/C’s role in energy consumption, building codes are incorporating requirements for new construction such as efficient insulation or use of shade.
“There are currently no demands in Germany that the government should persuade landlords to install air conditioning systems,” Beatrix Zurek, first chairwoman of the Munich Tenants’ Association, wrote in an email. Rather, “we demand that the state deals more intensively with the issue of heat in the construction of apartments.”
In parts of India, cities are looking to cool paint. After a heat wave killed over 1,300 people in Ahmedabad in 2010, the city introduced the Cool Roofs Initiative, which now has a target of painting the roofs of 15,000 slum buildings in reflective white to lessen heat absorption. A reflective roof can cool a building by up to 3.3C, and it also reduces the urban heat island effect outdoors.
In the state of Telangana, home to Indian technology capital Hyderabad, a 2023 policy requires residential buildings with footprints larger than 600 square yards (5,400 square feet) to install reflective roofs.
In a country where fewer than 10% of households have access to air conditioning, “it’s a low-hanging fruit for your home to be more comfortable,” said Shruti Narayan, regional director for south and west Asia at C40 Cities.
In the US, meanwhile, air conditioning is present in nearly 90% of all homes. That still leaves out some 35 million people who say they are living without air conditioners, and who are likely to be older, non-white and of lower income, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.
Ben Martin, research director of the affordable housing group Texas Housers, says state legislators can no longer ignore the issue of heat and air conditioning.
“The potential physical harm and death are going to become more apparent as they have in recent years,” he said. “And so I anticipate that we will reach a tipping point soon.”
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