Phoenix keeps its 24 hour cooling center open for a 4th summer in 2026 and adds hours at Cholla Library

Where to find a phoenix 24 hour cooling center in 2026

A phoenix 24 hour cooling center is open again this year. The City of Phoenix runs the Heat Respite and Navigation Center at 20 W. Jackson St. for the full 2026 heat season, staying open 24 hours a day so a person always has somewhere cool to go. Staff from the Office of Homeless Solutions, Community Bridges Inc. and the Phoenix Police Department support the site, which sits in what the city calls the primary hotspot for heat related emergency calls citywide. It is 1 of more than 60 heat relief sites the city runs as its own part of the larger regional network, open through September 30. This is the 4th year the city has updated its heat response plan, the version now in place dated February 13, 2026.

A second site and later hours at Cholla Library

A second site adds afternoon and evening hours nearby. The Justa Center, a nonprofit that serves homeless seniors, sits at 1001 W. Jefferson Street and opens from 3 to 9 in the evening every day this season. Community Bridges Inc. also staffs longer hours at Cholla Library, extended to 9 in the evening every day of the week, with extra hours from noon to 9 in the evening on Sundays. The city added those Cholla Library hours to reach residents along the Interstate 17 corridor north of downtown, since the 24 hour center and the Justa Center already cover the downtown core.

23 actions across 6 strategies, led by more than 15 city departments

The 24 hour center and the library hours are 2 pieces of a much bigger plan. The City of Phoenix 2026 Heat Response Plan lists 23 specific heat response actions, organized under 6 broad strategies, with responsibility spread across more than 15 different city departments and functions. This is the plan document itself, read directly for this article, and it is labeled Attachment A and marked draft, dated February 13, 2026, the detail that confirms the February timing without a council vote count, since no source read for this article names one.

Outreach to seniors, mobile home residents and unhoused people

One of the 4 notable updates for 2026 expands outreach to mobile home and senior living communities with the Red Cross, after 5 outreach campaigns reached 445 residents with 38 volunteers the year before. The Office of Homeless Solutions also ran a heat relief kit program that reached 1,579 people during the 2025 heat season, funded by a 3 year grant from the Gila River Indian Community.

DJ Lee, a captain with the Phoenix Fire Department, described one of the medical responses to heat stroke that the plan names.

We'll take IV bags that have been stuck in a cooler or in ice so it's super chilled.

DJ Lee, captain, Phoenix Fire Department. Source 3.

Keys to Change, a Phoenix nonprofit day resource center, is also part of the outreach the plan counts on. Kim Beaudoin, marketing and communications manager at Keys to Change, described how many people the center reaches each day.

We serve around 1,200 people every day.

Kim Beaudoin, marketing and communications manager, Keys to Change. Source 3.

Why outreach to these groups matters

The stakes behind this outreach appear in numbers the county publishes. Maricopa County finalized its count of heat related deaths at 430 for 2025, down from 608 in 2024, according to the county health department, a decrease of about 29%, calculated by this outlet from those 2 county figures. Of the 430 deaths, the county reports 48% were people experiencing homelessness, 55% involved substance use, 74% were men, and about 60% were people aged 50 and older, the same groups the plan names for targeted outreach.