KJZZ: ‘We have to be careful’: How this health team handles working in the heat helping the homeless

CTC Newsroom: Circle the City in the News

By Kathy Ritchie

July 13, 2024

Phoenix is scorching hot, with more triple-digit days ahead. Many of us are fortunate enough to work indoors with air conditioning, which makes the heat tolerable. But not everyone can do their job inside.

Circle the City provides mobile health care to the city’s homeless, so no brick and mortar buildings and no air conditioning.

Perla Puebla is the associate medical director of street medicine at Circle the City. She and her team start looking for patients in parks or near freeways early, around 5:30 a.m., but even then, it’s hot.

“If we’re not taking care of ourselves, drinking enough water, getting in the shade, taking a little bit of breaks, we start feeling it,” said Peubla. “We start feeling unwell, we start feeling the headaches, a little bit of dizziness, so we have to be careful. And that’s us being out here, five hours — max — right? Imagine them 24/7 with no relief.”

Last year, 45% of heat-related deaths were among the unsheltered population.

Read the article on KJZZ’s website here.

KJZZ: ‘We have to be careful’: How this health team handles working in the heat helping the homeless

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