Summers in Phoenix can be long and lethal for those who can’t escape the heat.
Outside a homeless shelter in downtown Phoenix, a few dozen people are vying for every scrap of shade on the lot. It’s not even lunchtime, and already a thermometer reads 104 degrees. As one visitor put it, “This city is hotter than three hells.”
Herman Sheffield, a big man with a big smile, says he prays to God for relief each night before he goes to sleep outside.
“It can be quite disturbing, especially if you don’t have some kind of living quarters,” he says.
Those who live in the heat say it makes them irritable, disoriented and unable to eat. The constant sun, they say, is a giver of near-constant headaches. Even at night, the temperature can hover in the lower 90s.
