4 days ago
Asphalt Burns and Heatstroke: Homeless in America's Hottest City
The sun was barely up when the three-person medical team pulled into the parking lot of a Phoenix soup kitchen, but the temperature was already around 90 degrees, on its way to 111.
The team starts its rounds at 5 a.m. because the afternoon highs are so dangerous. Perla Puebla, the family nurse practitioner leading the team, took a look at Hawaii Kalawaia and Zephyr Harrell and could tell they were dehydrated from their dry lips and skin. It's hard for homeless people not to be during Phoenix's unrelenting summers.
Mr. Kalawaia, 61, said he had passed out a couple weeks earlier. And Ms. Puebla remembered all too well what had happened last year, when Mr. Harrell, 55, got so dehydrated that his kidneys started failing. She offered intravenous fluids, one of many free services provided by Circle the City, the nonprofit that runs the street-medicine teams.
Mr. Kalawaia moved to Phoenix from Pearl Harbor to teach Hawaiian language and dance, but has been homeless off and on for over a decade. Sipping an electrolyte drink with an IV in his arm, he said he was so used to the heat that he hadn't realized he was dehydrated. But he said he often felt as though he would pass out again.
Phoenix, the hottest city in the United States in the summer, is one of the most extreme examples of a threat that is growing across the country: unrelenting heat.
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