Despite extreme heat, Florida does not require landlords to provide AC

ST. PETERSBURG — Passion Facey’s 8-year-old son sweats so much in his sleep that his bed is wet by morning.

To stay cool, her 3-year-old has learned to shed his clothes when the family gets to their apartment.

Her infant cries and cries and cries as Facey presses damp towels to the baby’s cheeks. And Facey, 29, is covered in bumps from the heat.

For most Floridians, home is a reprieve from temperatures that climb higher every summer. But for people living without air-conditioning, home-life becomes punishing as the heat saps sleep, concentration, energy and health.

The effects can be fatal. Hundreds of people have died because of heat exposure while indoors in the U.S. since 2019. The majority were without air-conditioning. Experts say outdated housing laws and high electric bills could be to blame.

Facey’s eldest son splashed himself with water from the sink as she sat in her 13th Street Heights apartment. She ran her hand across her collar bone, pulling drops of sweat into puddles on her fingertips.

“Look at my skin, I’m literally breaking out in hives,” she said.

In the last six months, Facey’s air conditioning has quit eight times. And because she rents, there’s no apparent end to her misery.

Barriers to cool air

Across the U.S., few laws guarantee renters cool air. Many housing laws were adapted from those drafted decades ago in the Northeast, when few dangerously hot days meant no pressing need to codify a right to air conditioning.

But the world is warming.

In Florida, where temperatures tend to dip below freezing just a handful of days each year, most landlords are required to provide access to heat for tenants. But there is no legal obligation for a landlord to provide a means for air conditioning.

“Which... doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Tom Felke, associate dean of health and human services at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Despite a lack of regulation, according to federal government surveys, the majority of Americans live with some air-conditioning.

Still, some 14 million households are without, resulting in heat-related fatalities each year. The problem is most common in northern states.

During a heat wave in Oregon in 2021, one county reported that of the 54 people who died indoors due to extreme temperatures, 41 were without air conditioning. And in Washington State — which has one of the lowest rates of air conditioning access in the country — another 159 people died that same year. Limited air conditioning was noted in a state report summarizing the deaths.

The prevalence of air conditioning is much higher in southern states — Florida leads the nation with more than 98% of dwellings recorded to have some form of air conditioning. But its residents aren’t immune. Rising utility costs cause renters and homeowners alike to switch off units as they weigh the choice between paying for groceries and cooling their homes.

For others, the cost of repairing broken units stands in the way. Last year in Texas, an elderly couple died in their home after their air-conditioning unit broke and they couldn’t afford to fix it. In Arizona, where 156 people died of heat-related illnesses indoors last year, broken air-conditioners contributed to the toll, as well.

Floridians face a similar plight, where about a third of residents are renters. Limited protections leave some tenants vulnerable when units fail.

Landlords are required to fix broken AC units

Florida laws addressing air conditioning have some nuance, said Jeffrey Hearne, the chief advocacy officer for Legal Services of Greater Miami, a non-profit law group that provides free legal services to people in need.

While Hearne said individual leases govern each situation, landlords are typically required to maintain air conditioning units present at the start of a lease.

That doesn’t always happen.

When Amy Gaskins moved into a Temple Terrace condo last February, the air conditioning was working. But as the months passed and temperatures rose, she noticed the unit wasn’t keeping up. By summer, the temperature in her home had jumped into the 80s.

When a maintenance worker inspected the unit, which was 27 years old, he told Gaskins it needed to be replaced. But Gaskins said her landlord refused and incorrectly cited that Florida law doesn’t require air conditioning.

Gaskins, who is 53 and works from home, said life became unbearable. Her service dog, a husky, wasn’t keeping food down.

“She was throwing up because of heat exhaustion,” Gaskins said.

She was forced to find a new place to live, she said, and she never got her security deposit back — almost $4,000 that included three months of rent.

“I was lucky that my parents lent me money to cover the cost of moving, but a lot of people don’t have that help,” Gaskins said. “They’re stuck in that situation.”

Tom DiFiore, a managing attorney at Bay Area Legal Services, a nonprofit law office for low-income residents, said that tenants are allowed to withhold rent if landlords haven’t taken reasonable steps to make repairs within seven days.

But not paying on time can backfire if the landlord files for eviction, a black mark difficult to wipe from your record. An eviction runs the risk of hurting a person’s ability to find somewhere else to live, DiFiore said, and can drop a person’s credit.

And because the law only states that landlords must make a reasonable effort to make repairs — without clearly outlining what those efforts must entail — some renters find themselves trapped in a cycle of haphazard repairs that never deliver improvement.

St. Petersburg resident Michael Love, 53, said his unit has gone out almost every summer in the 13 years he has lived on the second floor of an old building. Each year, maintenance tinkers with the machine, he said, and it eventually kicks back on. But poor insulation in the roof — along with blocked vents — make it ineffective. Temperatures in his two-bedroom apartment have reached 93 degrees.

A few years back, he gave up on his landlord and bought his own window unit. Some days, he sits in his car, the air conditioning running, until it’s time to go to sleep.

“It’s suffering, that’s what it is,” he said.

Efforts for change

Last year tied for the hottest on record in Florida. The top five warmest years in the state occurred in the past decade, and the heat index in summer regularly passes 105 degrees.

Whether it’s a broken unit, an uncooperative landlord, trouble paying utilities or a total absence of cooling technology, said Florida State University professor Christopher Uejio, it’s often people who are already vulnerable that are most affected.

In Florida, a study by Uejio and colleagues found that air conditioning decreased in predominantly Black or migrant communities. Rural areas of the state, which are often poorer, were found to be less likely to have air conditioning than urban areas.

Low income populations and people of color are more likely to live with pre-existing conditions like lung and heart disease, Uejio said, which increase sensitivity to heat and put people at greater risk. As summers grow longer, and people are exposed to extreme temperatures for months, Uejio said the health of people who are already vulnerable is more likely to wane.

Experts say that ensuring access to air-conditioning is the most effective way to prevent heat-related illness and injuries at home. Some states and cities have taken action. In Oregon, for example, Medicaid dollars were used to provide vulnerable residents with free air conditioning units. In Arizona, cities like Phoenix, Tempe and Tucson have temperature limits in place for rental properties with air-conditioners to ensure dwellings are safe.

In Florida, some nonprofits have tried to fill the gaps and provide air conditioning to vulnerable residents. Some counties have enacted programs to assist certain elderly and low-income residents, too.

But it’s a patchwork, said Florida Rep. Jervonte Edmonds, D-West Palm Beach, and more needs to be done.

Last session, Edmonds co-sponsored a bill that would have required landlords provide air conditioning, but the legislation failed to make it out of committee, as was true of similar legislation introduced the previous year.

“It’s crazy that in the state of Florida, where temperatures feel like 100 degrees, landlords aren’t required to have AC units in their dwellings,” said Edmonds.

He added that bills seeking heat protections for workers have failed, too, as well as those for people in Florida prisons where air conditioning is rare.

“It’s inhumane,” Edmonds said. “In Florida, it seems that we are moving away from the protection of residents when it comes to extreme heat.”

Edmonds said he hopes to refile the bill requiring air conditioning next session and to have conversations with other lawmakers about how to help tenants enforce their rights when units break.

Until then, it’s wet towels and cold showers for people like Facey and her children as they confront the impossible task of keeping cool through another blisteringly hot summer.

“It’s unbearable,” Facey said.