Skid Row cooling stations inadequate to protect unhoused people from heat illness

There are about 2,700 unhoused people living in Skid Row and only three dedicated places where they can sit down in the shade, grab a drink of chilled water and cool down from the summer heat.

The 24-hour climate stations are spread within the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood where the temperature this week was expected to reach a high of 91 degrees.

That’s not enough stations, authorities say, to help keep unhoused people from getting sick or dying of heat-related illness.

“Maybe if these stations were like, on every block, that would make a real difference,” said Sade Kammen, of the nonprofit WaterDrop LA. “But when people have to walk blocks to get a cup of water in the blazing hot sun it defeats the purpose.”

Since 2021, the city has allocated more than $6 million for the climate stations — formerly called cooling stations — including a nearly $2.5 million grant this year, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The agency distributes the funding to the nonprofit Urban Alchemy to operate the climate stations.

There are three permanent stations in Skid Row (the third was added last week):

• Towne Avenue (between 5th Street and 6th Street)
• San Pedro Street (between 6th Street and 7th Street) 
• Maple Street (corner at 5th Street)

But for the thousands of unsheltered residents of Skid Row who lack sufficient access to water and shade, advocates say they need dozens more climate stations to address the need.

Kirkpatrick Tyler, chief of community and government affairs at Urban Alchemy, said there are no plans to add more climate stations in Skid Row at this time. Instead, he said, the focus should be on creating more public spaces for unsheltered people.

“How do we take all of these buildings inside of the Skid Row community and figure out how to make them accessible spaces?” he said.

An ongoing crisis of resources

The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of four gallons of water per day to meet the minimum daily water needs for drinking and sanitation during an emergency situation. Unhoused people in Skid Row, where the latest point-in-time count showed there were 2,695 unsheltered people on any given night, have access to about half of that, according to Water Drop LA.

Skid Row is considered an urban heat island by Environmental Protection Agency standards, meaning it gets hotter than areas with more greenery and lacks shade, averaging a 3.5% canopy coverage throughout the 54-block area. The nonprofit American Forests recommends a minimum of 15% canopy coverage in urban areas to alleviate the heat island effect.

“At the heart of it, unhoused people simply lack cool places to go,” said Sherin Varghese, a volunteer for Ktown for All.

The downtown climate stations have pop-up canopies that provide some shade, but some advocates for the unhoused say they are not enough to actually cool people down.

“I personally think it's bullshit that you’re expected to think there’s a cooling center that’s outside on the sidewalk,” said Adam Smith, an organizer at Los Angeles Community Action Network. “A cooling center to me would be like indoors with air conditioning.”

Smith also noted that as of Monday morning, two of the three climate stations did not have ice to chill the water, or fans to cool off residents.

From cooling to climate stations

After a grueling heatwave in September 2020 — when temperatures soared into the triple digits downtown — Tom Grode and other advocates for the unhoused launched the Skid Row Cooling Resources Coalition. They proposed the cooling station idea to the mayor’s office.

The city approved nearly $400,000 for a pilot program of four cooling stations (though the proposal requested six) in summer 2021, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“It was a huge success. We thought — this is really working and people are really loving this,” said Grode, co-founder of Skid Row Cooling Resources. “Let’s figure out how to expand it and add way more stations.”

But the next year, in 2022, the mayor’s office reduced the number of stations from four to two, citing budget issues. The Homeless Services Authority reported that the city allocated $745,570 for the program that year.

In 2023, when funding from the mayor’s office shot up to nearly $2.5 million, L.A. officials said communication problems between the Homeless Services Authority and Urban Alchemy led to delays, and the two stations didn’t open up until the end of August.

Two more stations opened in September.

At that point, Grode said, communication from the government agencies running the program to Skid Row Cooling Resources dwindled, and advocates became frustrated.

“They stopped talking to us or taking our suggestions,” he said. “It became very City Hall based rather than neighborhood based.”

Grode said part of the issue is that the temporary cooling stations became permanent– year-round heating and cooling areas staffed around the clock by Urban Alchemy. Operating them 24 hours a day, seven days a week significantly increased costs, which made it more difficult to add more stations.

“There are good things about it, but what’s happening now is different than the reason it was created in the first place,” he said. “This is a cautionary tale of what happens when a grassroots collaborative effort full of energy does a great job and the government takes control of it.”

Tyler, of Urban Alchemy, said the organization had no choice but to make the stations permanent because daily set up and break down required too much labor.

“That was not feasible,” he said. “Now, the stations also are a safe place for people to go at night, which is just an added benefit.”

No more stations planned for Skid Row

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass did not specify whether the city plans to expand the climate stations.

“The City of Los Angeles is taking immediate action to ensure Angelenos are safe from the heat — and that includes more than opening cooling centers on Skid Row,” Bass wrote LAist in an email. “Urgent work is continuing to bring unhoused Angelenos inside and into housing. The heat and safety are top concerns.”

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an order to state officials instructing them to clear out homeless encampments. This comes after a recent Supreme Court ruling granted cities more power to cite and fine people who sleep outside in public places.

In a statement, the governor called on local officials to “do their part.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass slammed the court's ruling, and said in a statement after Newsom’s order that homelessness had decreased in the city for the first time in years because of a “comprehensive approach that leads with housing and services, not criminalization.”

The mayor continued: "Strategies that just move people along from one neighborhood to the next or give citations instead of housing do not work. We thank the Governor for his partnership thus far and hope that he will continue collaboration on strategies that work.”