The scorching sun pounded down last week on an aging brick home in North St. Louis. Stifling humidity and 90-plus degree heat flooded every room of the un-air-conditioned flat. Despite the conditions, 90-year-old Mary Miller quietly sat in the home’s sweltering living room, her bones aching from the severe arthritis she has dealt with for years. “It burns you up in here,” said Hatie Hughs, Miller’s daughter and caretaker, who also lives in the house. “With these brick buildings, it’s just too hot to live in here.”

To many area residents, the balmy summer months are a carefree time of vacations and leisure activities. But to those who live without any sort of cooling, particularly senior citizens and those suffering from illness, summer is anything but a walk in the park.

It’s a time of survival. With several weeks of summer left, cooling-assistance programs are finding themselves short on energy-assistance funds and low on air-conditioning units. And although temperatures were unseasonably cool this past weekend, the forecast calls for highs to be inching toward the 90-degree mark by week’s end. With no money, Hughs was desperate to find some sort of assistance to help cool her mother’s home. She contacted Cool Down St. Louis, an all-volunteer cooling-assistance charity. She wasn’t alone.

Gentry W. Trotter, founder and president of the board of directors for Cool Down, said volunteers have been answering in excess of 250 phone calls a day in the past several weeks from residents requesting help. “The heat can sneak up on you like a beast in the night, choking you. It can kill you,” Trotter said. “People who are at risk are the people who are frail. Heat plays havoc on the emotional and physical ability of these people. They are seniors or disabled or a family with a critically ill small child.”

Dr. James Knight of Normandy said heat-related illnesses are no light matter. “The very young and the old are so predisposed to overheating,” said Knight, who is vice chairman of Cool Down’s board of directors. “They need to be extremely careful during these extremely hot days.” Knight said very young children tend to perspire more quickly, making them more susceptible to dehydration. Senior citizens, one the other hand, often are already dehydrated. Because they aren’t able to perspire as much as younger people, they are prone to heat exhaustion as well.

People living with asthma or other breathing-related ailments are also more susceptible to heat exhaustion, Knight said. Cool Down, which began three years ago, helps those at risk living in 18 counties across the bi-state region. The recent surge in temperatures has created “a real anxiety for at-risk people,” and a “tremendous demand” for help among those people, Trotter said.

The organization began last week doling out its reserve stock of air-conditioning units. Money for energy assistance has already dried up. “We can only help with the life-and-death situations that we see,” he said. “So now we are strapped and stuck. We’re in desperate need for assistance.” Miller’s situation must have proved to be urgent. She received a window air conditioner from Cool Down Thursday. “It didn’t take long at all for us to get it,” Hughs said. “We really needed it. It blows on her all day. Sometimes it even gets too cold."

Hughs and Miller are lucky. Those seeking cash assistance to help with costly energy bills through the Cool Down program have been placed on a waiting list. “We’re lining them up. As soon as the money comes in, those at-risk people will get it,” Trotter said. “We are a little nervous, a little shaky. Just like the St. Louis weather, we don’t know what to do.”

Richard Kruegger, energy assistance coordinator for the Community Action Agency of St. Louis County, can relate to Trotter’s nervousness. “It’s getting down to the nitty-gritty, so to speak,” Kruegger said, referring to the dwindling energy-assistance funds the agency has available. Since October the agency, located in Overland, has served more than 5,000 St. Louis County families seeking energy assistance. Most of those families are from North County. From federal and state funds, the Community Action Agency receives about $2 million annually to help the needy with energy assistance.

But most of that money, about 70 percent, is earmarked for winter use, something that bewilders Kruegger. “Unfortunately, the way legislators look at it, is that it is more emergency oriented in the winter than in the summer,” Kruegger said. “The need is much, much greater than the resources that are available.” Unlike the Cold Weather Rule, which required energy companies to keep electricity on during certain winter conditions for customers with unpaid bills, there is no law that keeps utilities from turning electricity off during hot months, Kruegger said. With money tight and air conditioners scarce, the process to receive help from the Community Action Agency is “quite rigid,” Kruegger admitted.

Seniors requesting assistance must have proper identification to prove they are more than 70 years old. The disabled must have a physician’s statement confirming their ailment. The agency’s stock of air conditioners is nearly depleted. By last Thursday, the agency had 13 units left, and Kruegger said those would likely be gone by the end of the week. With resources running dry, Trotter and Kruegger agree that the real answer to St. Louis’ heat crisis lies in continued public help – not giving out a limited number of air conditioners and money every year. “We’re constantly trying to get some kind of public service message out,” Kruegger said. “This is a 12-month, 365-day issue. It doesn’t just emerge when emergencies arrive.” Trotter agrees. “It really taps into the health and the welfare of our citizenry,” he said.