It’s the hottest October day in the history of Tucson, and Mike Dame has his back to the full force of the sun. Under his feet, fully covered by the shade of Dame’s legs and the walker where he is holding his things, sits his dog Moose, idly dosing.
Dame doesn’t go to cooling centers or use the city’s shelter system because, he says, it’s difficult to find a place that will let him take Moose, a gray pit bull mix, inside with him. Instead, Dame spends the money he gets through social security on a hotel.
“It’s expensive to be homeless,” says Dame, who is 59 and struggles with multiple sclerosis that makes it hard for him to hold on to his belongings at times. Today, he’s weighing whether to spend money on a hotel: it’s hot enough to warrant one, but he’s wary of spending his money so close to the start of the month.
Each summer, he spends between $200 and $400 a month to stay in a hotel, often the Days Inn off the frontage road on Interstate 10, where he can get a room for around $50 most nights. “I’m trying to save for the hotter months,” he says.
This week, the weather is scorching. Tuesday, Oct. 1 was the hottest October day on record in Tucson with a high of 105°, according to the National Weather Service.
Heat experts say extreme heat is rarely the main factor that kills people, but it can exacerbate other health problems that may be deadly. People living outdoors are at particular risk, as are people with already existing health conditions or who may be using drugs (heat can make drug use more dangerous for the body).
So far this year, 79 people have died outdoors from heat-related causes in Pima County. The vast majority of those deaths, 60 in total, were in July, Tucson’s hottest month on record so far.
For unhoused people in Tucson, the continuing record-high temperatures at the end of a long hot season are an extension of the summer struggle: how to drink enough water, stay out of the sun and act fast if you start feeling bad.
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Both Pima County and the city of Tucson have, for the first time this year, established heat plans created to address the crisis of extreme heat.
Still, resources are not easily shifted when the heat extends beyond what is planned. Formal cooling centers close down starting Aug. 31, according to the city website, while some are open through Sept. 15, according to the county website.
Some indoor spaces are open year-round for homeless residents, including some nonprofit service providers and the Pima County Library system. The library system recently tabled a proposal to close several libraries, in part because of the difficulty in providing a broad range of needs to unhoused communities.
One cooling center still open is the new Mission Annex Cooling Center at 1801 S. Mission Road. Run by the county with staffing support from the city, the Annex is open through October, and then officials say they plan to reassess the need.
Unhoused individuals who came to the annex would find water, food, ice packs, sunscreen, cooling towels, and hygiene products, said city officials. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., it also has a city employee who could help provide transportation to the annex. City outreach workers also continue to share heat relief items like hydration packs, hats and sunscreen.
The extended heat season will also inform the city’s heat plan moving ahead, said spokesperson Andrew Squire. “Budgets and staffing requirements will need to be considered to allow increased flexibility to deal with this level of climate variability and recommendations will be made to the Mayor and Council.”
On Thursday morning in Reid Park, the temperature has dropped to 95 degrees, but William Christopher Zielke is still sweating. Zielke, who goes by Diablo, moved to Reid Park last week when Santa Rita Park was cleared.
Diablo grew up on the south side of Tucson, but he’s still found himself affected by the heat. when it gets bad, or his body overheats too much, he says it can take weeks to recover.
“You just deal with it I guess, the best you can do. You take every day slow — it sucks,” he says. He was hospitalized for heat stroke in 2004 after working outside digging ditches in the Foothills, he said, and woke up in a tub of ice at the hospital. “Your muscles shut down, your body starts cramping up.”
Diablo, who is 49, doesn’t go to cooling centers because he isn’t able to smoke or vape there. At Reid Park, he is also surrounded by his belongings, including a bike and a tent, which make it hard to easily change location, he says. “I just don’t like being indoors.”
The heat also impacts how he engages with the public. Diablo says he has been homeless for eight years, but his lowest points have been when he was wiped out on the sidewalk because of heat near the University of Arizona this summer, and no one stopped to ask if he was OK.
“Nobody cares. Probably about 100 people walked by me and nobody even stopped to say ‘Hey man, you ok? You alright?’” he says. He’s thinking about leaving. “I don’t know if I’m going to make it another summer or not.”
Colleen Munnelly, 31, also lives under a ramada in Reid Park. She’s been at the park for four months.
Her focus in the heat is keeping her black pitbull mix Cash cool — she tries to spend the day making sure he is covered with wet clothes. “Just trying to stay out of the sun, pretty much,” she said.
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