00:00Marsha Morgan's aunt is in town for medical treatment but the house is so crowded there's
00:14no space inside. So we have to just squeeze in into a bedroom house trying to get all the
00:22families together trying to find a cold place. Each community home in Tennant Creek houses an
00:29average 10 people. Wait times for housing in the Northern Territory sit around 10 years.
00:36Dudley's family has been waiting six. Nowadays something is changing you know. Long time around
00:44about 60s, 70s. Nice. When it's four o'clock it'll be nice and cool. Not today. All day hot.
00:53As the heat rises so do health complications. The kind of things that you'll see is increase
00:59rates of rheumatic heart disease as everybody crowds indoors for a two month period to shelter
01:05in the one bedroom that's air conditioned. Rheumatic heart disease is entirely caused by overcrowding.
01:12With rheumatic heart fever cases in the NT more than four times the national average there's
01:16a push to design houses for the climate of the future. People are dying because of very poorly
01:23performing thermal houses. Simon Quilty runs the not-for-profit Willie Adjanta co-designing
01:29homes with local people based on their culture and lifestyle. Plans include air conditioning
01:35throughout to prevent crowding in small rooms. A deep veranda to provide shelter from the harsh
01:41sun and more options for visitors. A large breezeway made of local mud bricks, anthills and spinifex and an
01:48outdoor kitchen to avoid adding heat to the house. Tennant Creek is an opportunity to learn how to live
01:55better with this heat and to remind us all that we need to be mitigating our carbon footprint more
01:59than ever before right today. But time, a luxury many don't have.
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