{"id":150217,"date":"2025-08-16T10:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150217\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T10:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:09:12","slug":"phoenixs-city-run-cooling-centers-have-had-nearly-17000-visits-so-far-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150217\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix&#8217;s city-run cooling centers have had nearly 17,000 visits so far this summer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cooling centers run by the city of Phoenix have had nearly 17,000 visits since opening their doors in May, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.phoenix.gov\/content\/dam\/phoenix\/heatsite\/documents\/2025-weekly-heat-reports\/Heat%20Relief%20Weekly%20Recap%20073125-080625.pdf\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">city data<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Phoenix is running a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kjzz.org\/kjzz-news\/2025-05-06\/new-24-7-heat-relief-site-in-downtown-phoenix-is-open\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">24-hour cooling center downtown<\/a> and is offering <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kjzz.org\/kjzz-news\/2025-05-08\/these-3-phoenix-library-branches-are-now-open-until-10-p-m\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">extended hours at three libraries<\/a> for heat relief. The sites are set to stay open through September.<\/p>\n<p>At the same point last summer, Phoenix\u2019s extended-hour heat relief sites had reported about 18% more visits than the sites have seen so far this summer. The decrease in visits this summer could be due to lower temperatures, said David Hondula, director of Phoenix\u2019s Office of Heat Response and Mitigation.<\/p>\n<p>Even with less visitation, Hondula said these sites are especially critical this year, since homelessness <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kjzz.org\/kjzz-news\/2025-05-28\/metro-phoenix-unsheltered-homeless-population-spiked-28-this-year-as-shelter-funding-dried-up\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">has increased and some Valley shelters have recently closed<\/a> amid funding losses. More than 80% of visitors to the city heat relief sites so far this year have reported being homeless.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPublic health partners in the region are certainly concerned if we see loss of shelter beds, loss of those resources, that could show up as more heat illnesses, more heat-related fatalities, and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re trying to prevent,\u201d Hondula said.<\/p>\n<p>Across Maricopa County, 35 heat-related deaths have been confirmed so far this summer and 369 more deaths are under investigation. Those numbers are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kjzz.org\/kjzz-news\/2025-08-12\/fewer-people-may-be-dying-from-extreme-heat-in-maricopa-county-this-summer-early-data-shows\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" data-cms-ai=\"0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">about 30% lower<\/a> than what had been reported at the same point last summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s really hard to value and appreciate how meaningful a safe, cool night is compared to the alternative,\u201d Hondula said. \u201cI think we\u2019re seeing that happen dozens of times over every night throughout the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooling centers run by the city of Phoenix have had nearly 17,000 visits since opening their doors in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-150217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115037901660197558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}