Chicago weather is pushing the Garfield Community Service Center to keep its cooling space open until 8 p.m. through Thursday, giving residents a place to go after daytime centers close. The site at 10 S. Kedzie Ave. will also open Friday, July 3 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with weekend cooling possible if extreme heat continues.
Brandon Johnson said DFSS outreach teams are “actively conducting” well-being checks for people living outdoors and are distributing bottled water while connecting residents to shelter and cooling resources. Chicago also has 287 citywide cooling facilities, including 22 police districts, community service centers, Chicago Public Libraries, Chicago Park Districts and senior centers.
Lonette Sims at City Hall
Lonette Sims, chairperson of People’s Response Network, called on City Hall to send more outreach teams and cooling buses directly to homeless encampments and low-income neighborhoods. She also called for temporary utility shut-off moratoriums during heat emergencies, arguing that the city should be “more preventative.”
The city’s existing network gives residents daytime options, but the schedule still leaves a gap after evening hours. All six Community Service Centers are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, while Garfield is extending service beyond that window for people who need cooling later in the day.
Sheetal Rao on night heat
Sheetal Rao, an assistant professor of medicine and public health at the University of Illinois Chicago, said one of the most dangerous things about heat waves is when temperatures do not go down at night. She said medically people need a place to cool down 24 hours a day during this kind of heat.
That leaves the city’s response split between broad daytime access and a narrower late-hour option at Garfield, which is where people without air conditioning, older adults and people experiencing homelessness are most likely to feel the shortage first. Chicago’s first heat wave is doing what heat waves do best: forcing the question of who has somewhere safe to go after sunset.
Garfield Community Service Center
The Garfield Community Service Center will stay open through Thursday evening, reopen Friday on an extended schedule and may remain open over the weekend if the heat does not ease. For residents who need cooling after work hours or after public centers close, that makes the Kedzie Ave. site the clearest option in the city’s response right now.
Chicago has the places; the open question is whether the late hours will be enough to match when the heat is most dangerous.
