BOISE, Idaho — People living at the Red Lion Hotel homeless shelter in downtown Boise struggled to beat the heat over the past week-and-a-half after the hotel air conditioning stopped working.
Interfaith Sanctuary runs the shelter, in partnership with the hotel and the City of Boise. Currently, executive director Jodi Peterson-Stigers said close to 90 people temporarily live there.
Things are finally cooling down, though. Peterson-Stigers said Interfaith posted a social media callout asking for $2,500 to buy new AC window units. The community exceeded expectation and donated more than $5,000.
"The community has been so generous and has given us funding," Peterson-Stigers said. "So, we feel pretty safe right now, even if we have to adjust."
Peterson-Stigers said community members donated used units, too. Interfaith staff finished installing all of the donated units and the 16 new units on Thursday afternoon.
One of those units went in Gerri Graves' room. She started living at the shelter last August.
"I'm so grateful," Graves said. "I feel like a million bucks."
Graves said that was not the case on Wednesday. At one point, her room was more than 90 degrees. Sleeping comfortably at night and completing her daily tasks became difficult.
While Graves said she could handle the heat, she was more concerned about the families and people with severe medical issues living at the shelter.
"I'm still relatively young," Graves said. "So, I was worried about the people that were like downstairs that have really debilitating issues, what they were going to do if it was that hot in their room."
Peterson-Stigers said they placed an AC unit in every fourth room because they would have blown a circuit putting one in all 42 rooms.
She said all the units went in the hottest rooms, while people living in the cooler rooms got fans. Interfaith did use some of the leftover money to move two people with severe health issues to a different hotel.
"We're just going to keep monitoring and hopefully this will work," Peterson-Stigers said.
This is not the first time the hotel's AC has broken. She said it was an issue last summer as well.
Red Lion's employees would not comment on the situation. The general manager did not respond.
Peterson-Stigers told KTVB the GM said they expect to fix the issue as soon as Friday. She encouraged everyone to think about the people without a safe place to live.
Interfaith said one of the best ways is to make a "Summer Loving Kit," zip lock bags or cotton sacks with essentials.
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