In a blog from the eye of the brutal heatwave that’s breaking records across the country this summer, Terry Benelli, LISC Phoenix executive director, weighs in on the acute impact of climate change on under-invested communities of color—in Arizona and in virtually every community LISC works with. It’s impossible to practice community development without incorporating a climate resiliency lens, she writes, and explains some of the big and small ways LISC, and all of us, can safeguard a livable planet.
Greetings from the Phoenix metro area, a literal hot spot of our global environmental crisis. In the spring came news that our water supply, both the surface water flowing from the Colorado River and the groundwater beneath our feet, is under increasing stress. Now comes this: a record-smashing two weeks and counting with high temperatures of at least 110 degrees.
I hear alarm in the voices of far-away friends and colleagues. “Oh my god, Terry, how are you holding up?” I’m ok, thanks. I’ve lived here in the Sonoran Desert’s largest city for more than 40 years, so I know how to get through a hot—a very hot—day.
But as executive director of LISC Phoenix, I’m profoundly concerned for the local communities we center in our work—historically marginalized, lower-income communities, many of them home to Latino, Native American, Black and Asian families whose roots here are much deeper than my own.
I’m concerned that social determinants of health will make their children and elderly more vulnerable to the extreme heat that is upon us, and worsening. I’m concerned that without an all-hands effort, in the growing competition for resources like water, viable land for housing, and even shade, they’ll be the ones to suffer. Indeed, there’s already plenty of proof of this: according to one study, between 2005 and 2015, the rates of emergency department visits for heat-related illnesses increased by 67% for African Americans, 63% for Latinos and 53% for Asian Americans compared to 27% for white people.
Consider a close-knit, largely Latino neighborhood southeast of downtown Mesa (part of the Phoenix metropolitan area), known as the Care neighborhood, and also called the Watertower Improvement District. Several years ago, one of LISC’s closest grassroots partners, RAIL CDC, began what has become an ongoing engagement with community members to plan heat remediation strategies. Residents were experiencing heat-related illness at high rates, and there wasn’t enough shade along heavily traveled routes. RAIL managed to acquire 700 donated trees to plant, but that surfaced another inequity: While larger homes to the north are served with cheap, convenient “flood irrigation”—you turn a valve and the water pours in to feed emerald lawns and deep-rooted trees—Care residents lacked the means to maintain pipes and valves, so irrigation was discontinued there years ago. They have to water using buckets and trucks.
Which brings me to an important point. Despite the disproportionate impacts of climate change on people experiencing poverty, they are engaged in struggles they see as even more immediate—making rent, feeding kids, working two or even three low-paying jobs. Residents of the Care neighborhood told us they could deal with roasting in the sun at an unsheltered bus stop; they just hoped the bus would come on time so they wouldn’t be late to work.
So at LISC, our approach is to meet (and respect) people where they are and take our cues from what communities know they need. This permeates our resiliency and sustainability work nationally. In Arizona specifically, we translate climate-related goals into relatable bread-and-butter realities, seed new organizations like RAIL that can advocate for community priorities, and act as a connector to ensure that available resources for climate resiliency reach and serve the communities where we work.
In managing $60 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for child care infrastructure across Arizona, for example, we’ve focused our grantmaking on air conditioning improvements (because when your AC busts in deadly heat, you’re out of business) and playground shelters (because kids need outdoor play).
In the Care neighborhood, RAIL is now working with a federal grant to plan shelters that can ease heat by a good 30 degrees in our dry climate, but also to establish a resiliency hub where people can go for mutual aid and information in any kind of emergency, whether a potentially lethal power outage or an epidemic like Covid.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced a $90 million program to help states and localities upgrade building codes for energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and utility bills. As part of this initiative LISC Phoenix is working with partners on a multi-million-dollar effort to educate localities on how they can use the funds to benefit under-resourced communities and retrofit existing housing stock. We’ll also be joining with workforce-development partners to ensure local people are ready to carry out the construction and weatherization projects—because one good job is much better than three lousy ones
The Valley of the Sun, as the Phoenix area is aptly known, has in recent years been among the country’s fastest-growing regions. Amid climate threats and escalating land and real estate prices, it takes imagination to help prevent the wholesale displacement of longtime residents.
I take inspiration from projects like the recently completed Tempe Micro Estates, which LISC Phoenix supported with capacity-building grants. These are thirteen highly energy-efficient, 600-square-foot homes arranged around common outdoor spaces planted with native and edible plants, all tucked in the heart of walkable downtown Tempe. The attractive Micro Estates are now owned by people with low and moderate incomes. And as part of a deed-restricted community land trust, they’ll be affordable—and environmentally sustainable—for generations to come.
Sometimes, we’ve found, the spark of imagination is ignited in conversation with the people who are closest to a particular place. As part of a series called Politics of Place, LISC and its partner InSite Consultants regularly invite local people to gather and walk and talk in places they cherish. For example, a group of ethnically and racially diverse Arizonans, some of whose ancestors farmed along the banks of the Rio Salado, which once flowed freely through what is now south Phoenix, got together with other stakeholders and listeners at a site beside the dry riverbed.
They mourned the river’s damming in the early twentieth century to satisfy the growing city’s thirst, and decried official decision-making that replaced riverside croplands with polluting landfills. City officials present at the occasion were moved to seek U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funds to clean up the dumping grounds, and in 2020 LISC Phoenix became manager of an EPA-funded revolving loan fund to remediate local brownfields, along Rio Salado, work that is still ongoing.
Yep, it’s hot as hell here in Phoenix. And it’s going to get hotter. That much, excuse the pun, is baked in. But there’s much we can and must do to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, and especially to fight the dynamic that leaves economically disadvantaged people to endure the heaviest consequences. In fact, it has to be part and parcel of everything we do in community development. And that will demand more investment and resources, every step of the way. As public and private sector investments begin to target resiliency projects, we must follow the lead and wisdom of those most affected by the climate crisis.
If we care about community livability, if we care about the grief of displacement, if we care about racial and economic justice, we must safeguard the larger, natural ecology of place in everything we do. Whether we’re facing wind and flood or heat and fire, across LISC’s nationwide footprint, we are all warriors for climate justice.
About the Author
Terry Benelli, LISC Phoenix Executive Director
Terry Benelli, Executive Director of LISC Phoenix believes comprehensive community development is not possible without targeted investments. She is dedicated to ensuring residents of marginalized neighborhoods acquire assets they desire for upward mobility — jobs, safe and stable housing and communities designed to promote health.
Terry oversees the community development operation of LISC Phoenix. She is a Fellow of the Flinn Brown Civic Leadership Institute, a board member of Artspace and the Los Angeles San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank and a former City Councilperson for the City of Mesa.
Terry Benelli on LinkedIn