Mone Choy is 68 and lives in the New York City neighborhood of Inwood, at the northern tip of Manhattan, on a fixed disability income of $1,901 per month. Her rent is frozen at $1,928. She lives with chronic health issues that render her unable to work. In addition to a few other intermittent gigs, Choy covers the rest of her expenses by collecting bottles from her building’s recycling and taking them to a nearby redemption center.
One luxury her budget doesn’t leave room for, even during a heat wave like the one that scorched the city last week — and remains ongoing around the world — is air conditioning. She has several AC units in her apartment (gifts from friends concerned about Choy’s health) but because she can’t afford to turn them on, they sit uninstalled.
“When I experience heat, my blood pressure shoots up and I get dizzy,” Choy said. To keep cool on hot days, Choy has to find air-conditioned spaces elsewhere in the city. To do so, she relies on a resource that the city government has touted as central to its response to extreme heat: the several hundred... Read more
