By Grace Hut, Assistant Director of Policy and Advocacy
October 8, 2026
You’re not imagining it—this October heat wave is unprecedented. This month, Downtown L.A. logged the longest consecutive stretch of 100-degree days in October since records began. The National Weather Service Los Angeles confirmed this makes 2026 the hottest summer (June 1 through October 4) on record in Los Angeles.
For many tenants, this summer’s heat has been excruciating and dangerous. That’s because L.A. City tenants don’t have the right to a cool home. Landlords are not required to provide cooling like they are required to provide heating, leaving tenants to resort to DIY cooling strategies like foil on the windows, ice packs, wet clothes, fans, or sleeping on tiled floors. Landlords also are allowed to prohibit tenants from installing A/C units even if tenants wish to pay for and install the units themselves.
L.A. County has taken action to address the problem of extreme indoor heat. In August 2025, the County Board of Supervisors passed the Safe Indoor Temperature Ordinance, which sets a maximum indoor temperature threshold of 82° F for rental housing in unincorporated parts of the county and gives tenants the right to install air conditioning in their units.
This year, L.A. City began considering similar protections for tenants, but not fast enough. Back in February, City Council voted to explore opting into the county’s Safe Indoor Temperature Ordinance. A number of agencies, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and the Los Angeles Housing Department, were tasked with reporting back on how to do so. Most of the departments were given 180 days—until mid-September—to submit their reportbacks to the council, while LADWP was given 30 days to submit their findings.
Now it’s October, and we’re still waiting for all of these overdue report backs. So, as the heat waves keep coming, tenants must figure out for themselves how to manage dangerous heat in their homes with no hope of a policy change in the near future.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that protecting tenants from extreme heat is a matter of life and death. Data show that extreme heat kills more people annually in the US than any other natural disaster, with almost half of fatalities occurring indoors because of the absence of effective cooling. Renters in South Central Los Angeles are especially impacted by extreme heat because of a confluence of factors—poor air quality, lack of tree canopy, preexisting health conditions and, of course, decades of rental housing neglect.
Tenants cannot wait any longer for protection from extreme indoor heat. Join SAJE in pushing the City Council to take action on this issue. Let your councilmember know that we are waiting for action by submitting a public comment using this toolkit: Public Comment Toolkit.
