Seniors Stranded Without Local Cooling Centers In Forest Hills

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — In the midst of New York City’s hottest three-day stretch of the year, one 70-year-old woman in Forest Hills decided to check the address of her neighborhood’s cooling center in case of an emergency power outage, but what she found is that there isn’t one.

“The one that seems nearest to me is in Elmhurst at the Queens Mall, and if I wanted to go there I would have to take two subways,” said the woman, a six-year resident of Forest Hills who asked Patch to be quoted anonymously since she lives alone. “It’s not convenient,” she added. “I think some people wouldn’t even go.”

In response to forecasts that the city will feel hotter than 100 degrees this week, the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) has opened hundreds of cooling centers citywide — but many Queens neighborhoods that are populated by people who have a high risk of dying during a heatwave don’t have a local site.

Patch reported that cooling centers are virtually absent in a handful of southeastern Queens neighborhoods that are overwhelmingly populated by low-income Black people, despite the fact that two times as many Black New Yorkers die of heat-related illnesses compared to the city's white residents, according to city data.

And, the disparities continue in Queens at large, which is the second-most populous borough, but has the second-fewest number of cooling centers among the city’s five boroughs.

“You see a handful of dots in Queens, and dots entirely covering other boroughs,” the woman told Patch, describing the cooling center map as “egregious” and “shocking.”

In its written statement to Patch, the OEM did not specify how cooling center sites are chosen in each borough and neighborhood, but said that the agency "leverage[s] trusted programs that are known and valued by the communities they serve," and "remains dedicated to providing cool spaces for all New Yorkers during periods of extreme heat."

But, the 70-year-old Forest Hills resident is not convinced. “How can they [the OEM] defend themselves and give some blanket ‘we care about everybody’ statement, when the disparities are so glaring?” she asked.

Age as a risk factor in heat-related death and illness

While the city considers race and income as risk factors for heat-related death across New York City, age is not listed as a factor that affects a neighborhood’s heat vulnerability.

However, city data of heat-related deaths in New York City between 2000 and 2012 shows that older New Yorkers are more likely to get sick or die during a heatwave than most of their young neighbors. Older, Black, women are among the most at risk, according to the data.

“When power goes out because of a heatwave, it's unnerving for everybody but seniors get more stressed out,” the 70-year-old woman told Patch, recalling a time when she had to drive back to Queens during a power outage a couple of years ago.

“I was really nervous about the roads being closed and being able to get back. Everything just seems a little more difficult to manage as a senior,” she said.

And for her, living through the pandemic as an older New Yorker has added to that stress. “[COVID has] heightened [my] anxieties in general,” she said, recalling the senior death toll as the pandemic unfolded and the city’s initial scramble to vaccinate seniors.

Senior-only cooling sites

In order to accommodate older New Yorkers, the city has designated over 50 of its cooling sites as just for seniors.

While a dozen of the senior-only cooling centers are currently open in Queens, only one is located in a neighborhood that’s populated by 10,000-plus seniors.

Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Forest Hills, and Downtown Flushing all have the highest population of seniors in the borough, according to city data, but Jackson Heights is the only neighborhood of the four that has a designated senior-only cooling center. Downtown Flushing and Forest Hills don’t have cooling centers at all.

The woman that Patch spoke to would have to take two trains to get to the Elmhurst cooling center, but she pointed out that some Forest Hills residents may live closer. However, taking the train as a senior can still be a challenge.

“You have to wait on the platform,” she said, noting that the stations themselves can get very hot. “I’m not saying I’m really frail, but compared to a younger person I am, as most seniors are.”

The OEM told Patch that fewer cooling centers are open right now because “many sites that served as cooling centers in previous seasons remain closed due to COVID-19 pandemic” including the Queens Public Library branches, which usually operate as cooling centers, but are not right now.

The agency expects to open more cooling centers in the "coming weeks,” and if the Forest Hills library branch is among them, it would solve the dilemma for the woman in Forest Hills.

“I can walk to our public library, so that would be a good option if it were open,” she told Patch.

City sites strand seniors

However, libraries alone won’t solve the city’s issue of keeping seniors stranded from cooling centers.

In 2019, when the city was able to open more than 500 cooling centers, a third of all senior New Yorkers were still more than a half-mile away from one of the sites, reported Gothamist.

For Allison Nickerson, executive director of Live On, an advocacy group for senior citizens in New York City, cooling centers alone aren’t the answer.

“I think the greatest asset we have is people checking on their neighbors,” Nickerson told Gothamist. “That is our first line of defense."