Guest Commentary written by

Pedro Zacarias

Pedro Zacarias is a farmworker and an advocate in the Purepecha community.

Extreme heat is a public health emergency for millions of Californians. For my family, it isn’t just a threat outdoors; it’s within our home as well. 

I live in a mobile home in Thermal in eastern Coachella Valley. Here, triple-digit heat creeps into our forecast earlier and earlier each year. This year, 100-degree days started in April and likely won’t end until October. 

Many times this summer, we tried using swamp coolers. But when humidity penetrates our homes, it’s a suffocating feeling, especially when you lack insulation. You can’t escape it. 

I know it’s dangerous to work seven or eight hours a day under the sun and then continue to bear oppressive temperatures at home, but what choice do I have?

State leaders can do something about this and pass Senate Bill 655 for my family and the millions of Californians this bill would help protect. The measure establishes a state policy that would require residential units to maintain a safe maximum indoor temperature. If it becomes law, it would affect future state regulations, programs and grant decisions.

California already has laws in place for homes to maintain a minimum indoor temperature. Why not have a law to ensure a maximum indoor temperature too? 

Climate change will make extreme heat events longer and more severe. In the next few decades, Riverside County will see 55 days every year in which temperatures exceed 100 degrees. By 2050, deaths from extreme heat could jump to more than 10,000 per year in California.

SB 655 could save lives. Nearly half the people in the U.S. who died from heat in the past 20 years died indoors. Many had no reliable cooling in their homes. Here in California, extreme heat caused 3,900 deaths between 2010 and 2019. Just last year in Riverside County, there were 1,627 emergency room visits and 65 deaths due to heat.   

Where I live, people use oscillating fans in addition to coolers. We put small bags of ice behind the fans so it will blow cool air. But it doesn’t cool, it just circulates humid air inside our home. It isn’t adequate, especially for small children. And it’s dangerous — you run the risk of electric shock, outages or a burnt fuse as the ice melts. 

Power outages in the summer also are becoming more frequent, due to a lousy energy infrastructure. In mid-August, we went four days without electricity. Food spoiled, down power lines blocked streets and we were left without air conditioning, coolers or fans.

How many families have to survive like this before our state leaders take meaningful action?

We need elected officials and agencies to work together to strive toward a reality where all Californians can be safe in their own homes from extreme heat and related illness and death. SB 655 would push the state toward a future where we all have the right to indoor cooling. 

Families and communities like mine can’t afford to wait. 

This story was made possible in part by a grant from the CIELO Fund of the Inland Empire Community Foundation.