A new census model estimates that over 800,000 households in the Mississippi River basin lack access to air conditioning, highlighting potential health and climate resilience challenges in the region.
(Provided by a partnership with The Narrative Matters)
The temperatures in Christina Joann Rainey’s home reached 82 degrees recently. The single mother from rural Carroll County in West Tennessee has paid to repair the 16-year-old home air conditioning system in the house she inherited from her grandparents multiple times, but it’s now beyond saving. She can’t afford the estimated $7,500 price tag to replace it.
As the National Weather Service warned of extreme and major heat risk in Tennessee this month, Rainey began calling any agencies and organizations she could think of to seek help. But she said she struggled to find programs available in her area that she is eligible for, other than loan opportunities that she believes will be too financially burdensome in the long run.
Rainey and her 15-year-old daughter sought relief by sitting in the car or traveling to a nearby Dollar General to get lemonade and temporarily cool off. But Rainey said she worries about being away from home for too long because of her Australian shepherd and 13-year-old cat. Rainey has been trying to keep them cool with cooling pads.
“I’m scared that if I leave, they could have heat stroke,” she said.
As high temperatures and humidity spiked “feels like” temperatures to more than 110 degrees in some areas of Tennessee, the National Weather Service urged people to stay indoors, hydrate and use air conditioning as “fans may not be adequate.”
But for an estimated 49,722 Tennessee households, air conditioning is not an option. Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in May estimated that about 2% of state households have no access to any kind of air conditioning.
In other parts of the Mississippi River basin, the share is still higher. In Arkansas, almost 3% of homes lack AC. In Minnesota and Ohio, the estimate approaches 4%. And in Wisconsin, over 7% of households do not have air conditioning.
A day after suffering through those extreme temperatures, a local air conditioning technician loaned Rainey a window unit, providing some relief.
“I’m so thankful for that, because he didn’t have to do that, and that was free of charge,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”
SUBHED: Resources and support programs vary at local level
Lack of air conditioning is a growing concern for health officials across the Mississippi River basin.
In the Milwaukee area, where about one in 10 homes lack air conditioning, heat indexes soared over 100 degrees during a recent hot spell. Health officials say many homes without AC are in places that have been identified as most vulnerable to hazards like heat, due to compounding factors such as poverty, lack of transportation and poor housing quality.
Lack of air conditioning is not an isolated issue — it overlaps with so many other issues. Heat is a multiplier of existing vulnerabilities,”said Dr. Ben Weston, Milwaukee County’s chief health policy adviser. “That’s the reason why individuals living in these communities feel heat so much differently.”
Christopher Uejio, a professor at Florida State University who did his own estimate last year of residential air conditioning in the U.S., said the census estimates may overestimate air conditioning prevalence in rural areas and underestimate it in cities, based on the data that was used. Still, he said, it’s important to have this kind of data available.
“When I lived in Wisconsin, we had one to two extreme heat events per summer. You could just open the windows, put up a box fan, and you’d be fine,” Uejio said. “As these heat events get longer and more protracted, more expensive adaptations have to be considered.”
Resources available to people without access to air conditioning vary at the local level. As temperatures hovered in the 90s in Tennessee in early July, an online tracker published by the Tennessee Emergency Management Authority showed nine cooling centers open across the state.
Programs providing free fans, air conditioning window units, or other weatherization assistance also vary. A summer cooling program in Nashville provides free fans or air conditioning units to eligible elderly county residents, families with children under age 6, and disabled residents with medical conditions affected by extreme heat from May 1 through August 31.
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Home Uplift program helps eligible households make their homes more energy efficient by sealing gaps, insulating ductwork and replacing aging air conditioners. Participants in the program must meet income qualifications, live in a single-family home that meets certain requirements, and be a customer of a local power company that participates in the program.
When Rainey checked her eligibility for the Home Uplift program, she received a message that TVA is not accepting applications in her area.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Health recommended reaching out to county governments and local emergency management agencies for resources.
SUBHED: A deeper look at the U.S. Census Bureau’s experimental data
The U.S. Census Bureau released its experimental Local Air Conditioning Estimates dataset in response to requests for more detailed information on air conditioning access as an indicator of heat vulnerability, according to the bureau’s website.
The dataset includes information from American Housing Surveys from 2019 through 2023, along with data from the American Community Survey from the same period.
Air conditioning access is not directly measured in the American Community Survey. While the American Housing Survey does ask if a home has an air conditioning unit, this survey wasn’t designed to be used at a granular geographical level. The U.S. Census Bureau used a machine learning model and the American Housing Survey data to “determine if a household in the ACS potentially lacks an air conditioning unit,” according to the bureau’s methodology.
The margin of error for Tennessee’s estimated 49,772 households without air conditioning is plus or minus 3,972 households.
This data may also fail to capture the circumstances of people like Rainey, who may have had working air conditioning at the time that data was collected, but no longer do. It also does not consider other factors that might limit access to air conditioning, like the cost burden of operating window air conditioning units.
Rainey said her mother is in a similar situation — her home air conditioning is no longer in working order and uses window units sparingly because of the electricity cost.
“Before it got this hot, she was trying to avoid (using) it because it gets so bad on electricity … but I think this last week or so, she’s had to use it because she didn’t have a choice. She was using fans and doing everything she could,” Rainey said.
Madeline Heim of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
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