Kristin Smollack woke up sweating. Lying in her metal bunk at GRACE Marketplace, a Gainesville homeless shelter, the 38-year-old was suffering severe dehydration. Hot flashes came in waves, and her body ached with muscle cramps.
“My sheets were soaked,” she said.
Smollack called herself an ambulance the night of Aug. 13 and was brought to UF Health Shands Hospital, where she received an IV. After being rehydrated, she was released Aug. 14 around 1:30 a.m.
Smollack is one of about 800 people experiencing homelessness in Alachua County. The local homeless population, which often lacks reliable access to resources like air conditioning and water, has become especially vulnerable due to the recent heat waves slamming Florida. GRACE Marketplace is scrambling to address the increased need for its resources.
The day Smollack was admitted to the hospital, “feels like” temperatures peaked at 110 degrees. The “feels like” measure takes factors like wind and humidity into account, which provides a more accurate representation of what people are experiencing outside.
Globally, July was the hottest month ever recorded. This means “feels like” temperatures in Gainesville frequently reached triple digits throughout the month, exceeding July’s 30-year average by three degrees, according to weather data from Visual Crossing.
Gainesville is also on track to surpass its “feels like” temperature average for August by almost five degrees. Aug. 8 had a record-breaking “feels like” average of nearly 97 degrees, and Aug. 14 had a record-breaking peak of roughly 115 degrees, according to data from Visual Crossing dating back to 2000.
GRACE Marketplace Outreach Director Mark Watson said he worries about the impact of the severe heat on the homeless people he works with.
He called first responders eight times for homeless people experiencing heat-related medical issues during the first two weeks of August.
“Our job is to keep them alive,” he said.
Two days a week, Watson and the other members of GRACE’s outreach team drive a van stocked with food, water and other necessities through the Gainesville area to reach homeless people beyond GRACE’s walls.
In a stretch of forest across from the Walmart on Waldo Road, Mark McCarty unzips the flap of his tent. Reaching out a hand, he takes a sandwich from Watson on Aug. 15. The heat, McCarty said, is not for people like him.
McCarty, 56, falls under the category of chronically homeless. This group, Watson said, includes people with disabilities who have been homeless for at least a year.
“7:30 [p.m.], 8 o’clock is really the only time that’s actually livable,” McCarty said, swatting away mosquitoes.
McCarty has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and chronic respiratory issues. He can’t be exposed to direct sunlight or extreme heat due to his condition. With his mobility drastically reduced, McCarty said he spends hours a day inside his tent.
Jon Decarmine, the executive director of Grace, said the chronically homeless make up 30% of Gainesville’s total homeless population.
“Those are the folks who have the least amount of access to resources and therefore suffer the most during heatwaves like this,” he said.
GRACE, which sees 250 people at their main campus every day, hasn’t seen an increase in the number of people seeking shelter from the recent heat. What has increased, DeCarmine said, is how much assistance the average person needs.
People who previously came to GRACE for a meal or to do a load of laundry now spend hours inside the facility to be near air conditioning and water, he added.
“People…are kind of just coming in and trying to survive the day,” DeCarmine said.
Mary Mathews Reid, a 59-year-old homeless Gainesville native, has been living at GRACE for about three weeks. Without a car or a bus pass, Reid must walk everywhere she goes.
She worries about how the physical effects of walking in the heat, like sweating, will impact her job prospects and ability to appear professional, she said.
“I want to apply for jobs and stuff,” she said, “but I don’t want to go in there looking like I just took a shower.”
Reid wishes GRACE had more water, fans and activities for the residents. With the heat keeping her indoors, she said, her only entertainment is the weekly church service and yoga class.
“I wish we had some ice,” she said.
Gainesville’s recent spike in heat waves is likely due to climate change, Andrei Kirilenko, a UF Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management professor, said. Global temperatures soared 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time this summer, breaking the safe limit imposed by the 2020 Paris Agreement, Kirilenko added.
Kirilenko, who specializes in the effects of climate change on humans, believes the record-breaking heat will fall hardest on vulnerable populations like homeless people.
Hotter climates will lead to increased negative physical and mental health impacts on homeless individuals who lack access to shelter, he said.
“There are fewer options for [homeless people] to mitigate the changes in the environment.”
Despite Gainesville’s rising temperatures, the city’s current policies and funding discussions don’t reflect the increased needs of local homeless people.
The city of Gainesville has an official response for extreme cold weather, but not one for severe heat. When temperatures dip below 45 degrees, the city implements a Cold Shelter Night program, which provides shelter and services at facilities like GRACE to people more vulnerable to the cold.
City officials have also announced that $350,000 of GRACE’s funding will be cut from Gainesville’s upcoming fiscal year budget, DeCarmine said.
The loss would force GRACE to terminate its outreach program entirely, as well as reduce shelter beds by 10%. GRACE would not only have a limited capacity to house short-term residents, but it would also be unable to offer as many people long-term housing opportunities.
The outreach program placed 248 homeless people into permanent housing over the last two years, DeCarmine said. Cutting the outreach program also means people like Mark McCarty, who are unable to travel to GRACE’s main campus, would lose support.
In dangerous heat waves, the outreach serves as a vital resource for the homeless by providing the ongoing, specialized support the city’s first responders can’t, DeCarmine said.
“Our city will still respond to people who are dehydrated, but we will be doing it with paramedics and coroners instead of outreach workers,” DeCarmine said. “The end result is very likely to be a doubling of the unsheltered homeless population over the next two years.”
Contact Kylie Williams at kwilliams@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @KylieWilliams99.
Kylie Williams is the Fall 2024 Enterprise Editor and a junior journalism major. Previously, she worked for the enterprise desk as the environment reporter. In her free time, she can be found reading, baking or watching reality TV with her cat.
Zachary Carnell is a senior student journalist at UF and a data reporter for The Alligator’s enterprise desk, with an equal love for accountability journalism and computer programming. Outside of the newsroom, if he isn’t drinking a Slurpee, playing rugby, or absent-mindedly singing to himself, he’s probably lost in thought about some random project.
