City offers no respite from heat of season in form of cooling centers

LITTLE ROCK — The city will not open cooling stations in the city’s community centers this summer because of covid-19 concerns, according to city spokesman Lamor Williams.

Risk factors involved with the pandemic and rising infection rates have led the city to close the community centers, meaning they’re unavailable to help residents whose homes lack air conditioning. But, Williams said, the cooling centers weren’t used anyway.

“The city is always concerned about the safety of residents,” Williams said. “However, few residents have used the cooling centers when they have been open in the past. Last year, no residents checked into either of the cooling centers.”

Parks and Recreation Director John Eckart said last July “occasionally we have one or two that utilize it, but it’s usually very little.”

Without cooling centers, people dealing with the heat will have limited options to find relief, since access to a lot of public buildings is limited because of the pandemic, and there may not be any city options, Williams said.

“At this time, it is unclear what alternatives would be available considering the need to maintain social distancing to slow the spread of coronavirus,” Williams said. “However, the city stays in close contact with partners that serve the most vulnerable residents among us and stands ready to provide assistance as needed.”

For the rest of the summer, the National Weather Service expects temperatures to exceed 89.7 degrees, Arkansas’ average over the past century, according to senior forecaster Brian Smith at the weather service office in North Little Rock.

Many city leaders, including Ward 2 Director Ken Richardson, are concerned about the rising temperatures coinciding with coronavirus restrictions.

“In the past, when there’s been a problem with the heat … when I run into people that ask about those cooling centers, I tell them about the ones we have open and available,” Richardson said.

His ward has a disproportionate number of rental homes and apartments, with some having insufficient cooling equipment, Richardson said. He thinks more complaints will come in now that there are fewer places to go to escape the heat.

“I expect those complaints will pick up because I’m out in the community a lot, and I run into people that are unfortunately disadvantaged with respect to some of the basic elements of fair and adequate housing,” he said.

Richardson said he would like to find a way to make sure housing in his ward has adequate cooling. The cooling stations, even if open, have limited hours of operation, he said.

“I understand covid and its impact on everything we’re doing in our community, but I think we need to figure out ways to help meet the basic needs of our constituents,” Richardson said. “I think that’s important for a city government to do, and I think we should be creative enough or strategic enough to allocate resources to help people adjust during times like these.”

The homeless communities in Little Rock are also taking a hit from the heat. Gala Tallent, founder of Street Ministry, said the communities she works with are feeling the hot weather.

“There’s definitely a problem in the camps,” Tallent said Thursday. “It’s just terribly hot. We were out there all day yesterday, and it was terrible.”