Tucson, AZ

Housing, Climate and environment | 2025

Assessing housing conditions and climate vulnerability to prioritize housing repair and heat mitigation efforts.

At an average increase of 4.5°F since 1970, Tucson is one of the fastest warming cities in the United States, and heat-related deaths of residents are increasing. In 2023, Pima County suffered over 50 percent more heat caused deaths (43) than the previous record in 2022 (28) and more than double any year before 2022. Low-income and marginalized communities in the area are particularly vulnerable to heat events because of poor housing conditions and limited access to the resources required to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. In 2024, the City of Tucson developed the Heat Action Roadmap, but detailed information is still needed to inform housing stock resilience efforts. The Sonora Environmental Research Institute Inc. (SERI), a community-based nonprofit that focuses on safety, environmental, and health issues, will conduct a detailed analysis of housing conditions in low-income communities in southern metropolitan Tucson to identify the extent of housing deficiencies, supporting efforts to prioritize mitigation and sustainability resources.

SERI will conduct 500 home assessments based on their healthy homes rating system, which calculates potential risk to residents’ health and safety based on 29 hazards, including extreme heat, mold, and falls. The project will train 20 current SERI volunteers to conduct half of the assessments, all of which will be combined with existing data for a total of nearly 900 assessments. SERI will analyze the most frequent and severe hazards as well as which demographic groups are most affected and recommend policy responses. Staff will share the analysis in a report with all residents who participated, as well as with city officials and local housing agencies.

Data from this project will serve as a baseline for housing conditions in the Tucson area to evaluate housing and neighborhood programs, providing information for a data-informed road map to address the disparities in housing conditions and climate vulnerability in the face of rising temperatures. SERI will partner with the Cities of Tucson and South Tucson to ensure that the data are used to target limited local resources effectively. In addition, SERI staff will use the data to focus their home repair, lead poisoning, water conservation, and solar empowerment programs in the most vulnerable neighborhoods.