00:00Hi everyone, I'm Alla Grace Hongoni from Slice of Culture and today we're going to be taking a look
00:05at how extreme weather in New Jersey is impacting daily life. But for some households, staying warm
00:10in the winter and cool in the summer is not a guarantee. I spoke with one Jersey City resident
00:15about how climate and costs can influence everyday life. For 19-year-old Maya Hicks,
00:20cold winters are nothing new. Her family's home has never had central heating,
00:25forcing them to improvise in order to stay warm. So just simply not having heating or
00:34any preparation for like power outages, we'd use our stove top. And when summer arrives,
00:41the discomfort doesn't disappear. It changes. My mother would, she would buy products that were
00:53colder that needed to be in the freezer. So we'd use ice packs, like I use ice packs on my
00:57neck.
00:58We have like a lot of ice packs in the house. Without air conditioning, heat becomes trapped
01:03inside the home, leaving residents to rely on temporary solutions to stay cool. And then as
01:09for electricity bill, but we couldn't afford something else. Like if we couldn't afford to
01:14like pay for Wi-Fi, we would not have Wi-Fi because we'd have to pay for that instead. For
01:19many families,
01:19staying warm or cool comes with a financial trade-off. Rising energy costs can force
01:25households to choose between basic necessities. As temperatures continue to fluctuate, state and
01:31local programs offer warming and cooling centers, along with energy assistance resources. But for
01:37families like the Hicks, surviving extreme seasons comes with adaptation and resilience. Reporting for
01:44Slice of Culture, I am Alla Grace Hongoni.
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