A sweat-covered residents across the Chicago area anxiously wait for high temperatures to subside, many of them can seek refuge in the cool indoors.
That's not the case for Patricia Benford.
Benford, 71, lives in a two-bedroom home in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood without air conditioning. The home, which is more than 40 years old, never had central air. When she began renting it eight years ago, the owner who had been living in the house had a small window unit in an upstairs bedroom, but she took it with her, Benford said,
"We get real hot," said Benford, who lives with her 13-year-old granddaughter. "The kitchen, it has a ceiling fan. It doesn't help a great deal, but I turn it on and sit up right at the table under it, so it kind of helps."
In an era where air conditioning is a given in new homes and window units are available in dozens of varieties, Benford is part of a small segment of the population still without it — or refusing to use it — even during the hottest spells. It's a group that troubles some community leaders, who have spent recent days handing out cold water and juice in some of the city's low-income neighborhoods.
"I know some homeowners, seniors as well as young homeowners, they do not have air conditioning. Some of them don't even have fans," said Omar Shareef, founder of the African-American Contractors Association. "These people are just kind of going from day to day on a paycheck to keep the basic things running — food, water and gas — not to put another burden on the table."
And without any requirements for air conditioning in residential buildings in the city's building code, Shareef said he and other community leaders worry that the problem will persist for hot summers to come.
"There should be some type of ordinance put in place," he said. "Every home should have some type of clear path from City Hall, you've got to show proof that you have a cooling center or cooling unit in these buildings that you rent out and build."
There are 2.9 million occupied homes in the Chicago metro area and about 69 percent of them have a central air conditioning unit, according to 2013 data from American FactFinder and the U.S. Census Bureau. About 27 percent of homes have at least one window unit, but some of those units may be in homes that also have central air.
The city of Chicago mandates that in summer months, licensed assisted-living establishments, long-term-care facilities and adult-family-care homes and centers equip, monitor and maintain automatic air-cooling systems or equipment capable of maintaining a temperature of 75 degrees and 50 percent relative humidity in all living quarters, dining areas, bathrooms, common rooms and connecting corridors, according to Mimi Simon, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Buildings. But no mandates exist for air conditioning in residential buildings.
Some people prefer the heat ...
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