Cleyber Andrade, a Venezuelan asylum seeker, tells us that it is very uncomfortable to be inside the shelter at Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem during this heat wave, especially at night.
This is because this building does not have air conditioning or a good ventilation system.
“We need more ventilation because despite the fact that we all sleep a lot in one room, so everyone also gives off their heat, so imagine the suffocation, we don’t have air, it’s too hot that we all have to be out here,” adds Andrade.
He asks the authorities to take action on the matter.
“We are grateful, but even though we are 18 people in a room that is five, six, please help us with the air because right now it is extremely hot and obviously we don’t want to spend all day sitting in the street,” he adds.
This building, which had been vacant since 2019, recently returned to work as a temporary shelter to shelter more than 420 immigrants seeking asylum.
Municipal officials admitted that this building is not equipped with air conditioning.
Meanwhile, to cope with the heat, these immigrants say that they drink a lot of water and that every so often…“two, three in the morning I take a bath to cool off the heat. But anyway, you get out of the shower and you’re already sweating after a while, you can’t.”
To help alleviate the situation, the municipal government allocated two MTA buses that are being used as a cooling center.
But some of the immigrants are sitting outside the building and the buses are empty. Some say they did not know that this was the function of these buses, but they still do not like to feel confined.
“Perfect I didn’t know but I still don’t like confinement very much I prefer to be here, in the natural,” says Alejandro Rodríguez.
Mayor Eric Adams and other city officials said the buses are available to applicants for the duration of this heat wave.
The Commissioner of the city’s health department, Ashwin Vasan said that more than 80% of deaths “from heat stroke” in recent years involve people who were exposed to heat, in homes without air conditioning.
2023-07-28 15:34:00
#Immigrants #support #due #heat #Lincoln #Correctional
