With little shade and an intense sun beating down, Mondy Pierre stepped into his mother’s Liberty Square apartment to get out of the 86-degree heat Wednesday morning.
As temperatures crept up toward the 90s, the 38-year-old said he had to pay for an air-conditioning unit for his mother’s home in Miami’s oldest public housing project. They could afford only a small unit that cools only part of the apartment, leaving some rooms hot enough that the heat is still triggering his mom’s seizures.
Yet despite South Florida’s sweltering climate — intensified by record-breaking temperatures the past few years — the federal government does not require air conditioning for public housing. And in the case of the 82-year-old buildings that make up Liberty Square, antiquated and Washington-centric regulations mean each apartment has an oddity for South Florida homes: a heater.
Read more with our news partner, the Miami Herald.
