BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — Today, about 30 million people in the U.S. live with chronic heat exposure, mostly in the south and southeast. Every year, an increasing percentage of those older Americans are low-income, and more likely to have medical conditions making them sensitive to heat.
Here’s how Elder Aid is making sure their seniors are safe from the heat with their housing and utility aid.
Executive Director of Elder Aid, Carol Jones said, “For our tenants if there’s an A/C problem we’ll put in a temporary unit in the unit and then also provide fans. For our tenants specifically we do their yard work, so they don’t have to be in the yard and get heat exhaustion and heat stroke.”
One tenant says she wouldn’t have been able to afford these services without Elder Aid stepping in and lending a helping hand.
“The way things are going you don’t have enough money to afford to live out there especially if you’re on a fixed income,” said Mary Gibson, tenant and volunteer case worker at Elder Aid for 13 years now.
The nonprofit has helped over 1,000 low-income seniors find the assistance they need.
Gibson expanded, “I don’t have to worry about going out there and doing anything if I don’t want to because my lawn is taken care of, I have a nice cool place to stay a nice dry place to stay and life is so much better.”
