As Summer Approaches, City Must Upgrade Aging HVAC Systems at Cooling Centers to Avoid Heat Hell

Older adult centers that serve as lifelines for thousands of aging New Yorkers struggle with infrastructure so outdated it compromises one of their most critical functions: providing safe refuge during increasingly dangerous heat waves.

As climate change drives more frequent and severe heat events, these centers—often the only climate-controlled spaces many aging New Yorkers can access—operate with HVAC systems and other capital equipment decades beyond their useful life.

The solution requires more than temporary fixes or emergency responses after systems fail. A dedicated capital fund within NYC Aging would enable proactive upgrades to critical systems such as HVAC, plumbing, and elevators while supporting emergency repairs that can’t wait for multi-year budget cycles. Such investments would transform these vital community spaces into truly climate-resilient facilities worthy of the older adults who rely on them.

At Encore Community Services, one of the city’s largest providers of aging services, we experienced firsthand the consequences of this infrastructural neglect. At our Midtown Aging Through Arts Center, which serves hundreds of older adults weekly, temperatures routinely climbed to uncomfortable levels during heat waves despite its designation as an official cooling center.

Only after extensive advocacy, media attention, and appeals to elected officials did we secure funding to replace our failing HVAC system late last year. Thanks to discretionary funding from our NYC Council Member, Erik Bottcher, and State Senator Liz Krueger, the 30-year-old unit is on track to finally being updated.

It should not take media attention, patchwork repairs, and years of urgent appeals to secure the basic infrastructure that makes older adult centers functional, let alone safe. This reality was highlighted recently during testimony before the City Council’s Committee on Health.

The infrastructural shortcomings facing these centers represent more than an inconvenience—they pose genuine public health risks. For older adults, whose bodies are less able to regulate temperature, extreme heat can exacerbate existing medical conditions and lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and even death. According to the NYC Department of Health, heat-related mortality disproportionately affects older adults, particularly those living alone or with limited mobility—precisely the population these centers serve.

As New York faces another potentially record-breaking summer, the urgency of addressing this infrastructure gap becomes clearer. Climate scientists predict that by 2050, New York City could experience heat waves five times more frequently than today. For New York’s 1.2 million residents over age 65, many living on fixed incomes in apartments without adequate cooling, functional community cooling centers aren’t just a comfort but a lifesaving necessity.

The city’s network of older adult centers represents our most accessible defense against the health impacts of extreme heat for older adults. Yet without significant investment in their physical infrastructure, we ask these centers to fulfill an increasingly critical public health role while leaving them woefully under-equipped. Imagine expecting emergency rooms to function without reliable power or ambulances to operate with failing engines—we would recognize such situations as untenable. Yet we accept similar conditions in facilities that protect our most vulnerable residents.

The financial calculus also favors investment. Preventive infrastructure upgrades cost significantly less than emergency repairs, hospitalizations due to heat-related illness, or the construction of new facilities when existing ones become uninhabitable. For every dollar spent on proactive capital improvements, the city stands to save many more in emergency response costs.

The clock is ticking. Summer approaches, and with it the heat that threatens our most vulnerable. The question now is whether city leadership will recognize that investing in these centers is about more than building maintenance—it’s about climate resilience, public health, and honoring our commitment to those who built New York into what it is today.

Raven Graves is the senior director of community aging at Encore Community Services.