Environment
Heating Violations Are Leaving Residents in the Cold
As wind chills dip as much as 50 degrees below zero, cities like New York and Chicago scramble to restore heating and hot water in homes.
Just in the past two days, the Metropolitan Tenants Organization’s hotline in Chicago has fielded more than 250 calls—making up a quarter of all calls for the month of January. Half were from renters who said their homes didn’t have heat. Many of the rest involved issues related to insufficient heating, like frozen water pipes.
As the polar vortex sweeps across the Midwest and into the Northeast, wind chills have plunged 20 to 50 degrees below zero, making cities like Chicago and Minneapolis colder than Antarctica. Schools have been canceled, businesses closed, and even the U.S. Postal Service stopped deliveries. Residents were urged to stay indoors, but for many people, being at home provided little refuge from the brutal chill.