Anamelia Jaramillo has lived in Jubilee Park for almost 20 years and is concerned about the heat getting worse every summer.

She fears her air conditioning system failing because her husband has diabetes and can be vulnerable to extreme heat.

“I wish we didn’t have to have the A/C running all day long, but it is impossible to survive in the summer without it,” said Jaramillo, 54, after attending a Zumba class at Jubilee Park on Nov. 11.

In 2023, more than 20 people died in Dallas and Tarrant counties from heat-related illnesses as Texas saw record heat waves and triple-digit temperatures, according to the counties’ medical examiners. The lack of trees and green spaces, such as community gardens and parks, in an urban area contributes significantly to the ‘urban heat island effect,’ as buildings, roads, and other hard surfaces absorb and retain more heat.

Dallas’ District 7, where most of the neighborhoods participating in the South Dallas Greening Initiative are located, was ranked the third-highest priority for tree canopy, according to the Dallas Tree Equity Mapping Report published in 2022 by the Texas Trees Foundation.

Districts 4 and 6 ranked as the first and second highest priority for tree canopy, and the organization has been deploying some of their programs to plant more trees in these areas. Early this year, the Texas Trees Foundation released its plan to tackle the lack of trees in the Southwestern Medical District as part of its initiatives to combat the urban heat island effect.

Texas Trees, through the South Dallas Greening Initiative, also is working in the Jubilee neighborhood to address the area’s lack of trees to combat the extreme heat affecting residents’ health and quality of life. The nonprofit is providing thousands of trees to the almost 50,000 residents of Fair Park, Mill City, Queen City, Wheatley Place and adjacent neighborhoods over five years. Jubilee Park is just below Interstate 30 and north of Fair Park.

Chandler Stephens’ father, Calvin W. Stephens, has owned two vacant lots in South Dallas since the 1980s. The younger Stephens has been talking with the nonprofit Texas Trees about working together on his vision to create a community garden.

Stephens dreams of having a green space in every corner of South Dallas to improve residents’ quality of life.

“I can see [the initiative] as something that will prolong the community’s livelihood. Not only with addressing the urban heat island issue but just by providing greenery,” Stephens said. “Plants and our health is so linked to the health of the earth and the planet.”

The Dallas Comprehensive Environmental Climate Action Plan established protocols for adapting to climate change challenges in 2020. It states that Dallas needs approximately 735,000 trees to reach a goal of 37% tree canopy cover and, specifically, mitigate the urban heat island effect.

Since Its founding in 1982, Texas Trees has planted an estimated 1.5 million trees across the Dallas-Fort Worth region. In 2023, the Dallas-based nonprofit secured a $15 million grant from the Reduction Act through the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry program for the South Dallas Greening Initiative.

The project, however, is part of a long-term solution to extreme heat, and many of Jubilee’s residents want to see more.

“I am in favor of the initiative and for them to plant more trees in the area, but we also need help with how to pay the electricity bills,” Jaramillo said.

In any community, including South Dallas, trees may not be at the top of each resident’s list of the needs they see for their community, said Elissa Izmailyan, chief strategy and operations officer with Texas Trees.

“We are showing up with a commitment to help and the ability to offer trees and urban forestry education but realize that we’re entering a landscape where there are a lot of other needs and priorities,” Izmailyan said.

“So first, we need to be sensitive to that broad range of priorities and capacities. Second, we need to think about how our offering intersects with other needs in a way that’s additive.”

The project will have several components beyond planting trees in the community, Izmailyan said.

The first phase has been to reach out to the community and work with nonprofits and organizations in South Dallas to establish a trusting relationship and understand the community’s needs and wants.

That’s where partnerships with local organizations come into play, as well as involvement with community leaders.

The Jubilee Park and Community Center is a nonprofit that works to restore equity and resources for the 3,000 residents of the Jubilee neighborhood. The community center has been around for almost 30 years and offers education, health, food access and after-school programs.

Emily Plauche, Texas Trees’ community greening manager, said the initiative includes an educational component that teaches residents about trees, their benefits, how to care for them, green jobs, and other measures that can be taken to combat extreme heat.

“So there’s always going to be other needs or things that arise, too, and we can’t necessarily, with our money, purchase that. But we can help advocate and get the city involved and bring other people to the table who have some of these potential solutions,” Plauche said. “We are deeply committed to the well being of the community.”

Texas Trees will work with some of the area’s schools to boost green spaces and tree planting on the campuses. The organization already runs a program across the city focusing on schools needing more canopy.

Marissa Castro Mikoy, president and chief executive officer at Jubilee Park, said over the years, Texas Trees has helped plant over 150 trees on their campus, and they can see the benefits to the community, from providing shade to beautifying the park.

Benefits of trees

In April, Dallas shared findings from a study that identified at least 10 neighborhoods as ‘urban heat island spots.’ Some of these spots have less green space, and the temperature is 10 degrees hotter in these areas than in other parts of the city.

Trees can help reduce the urban heat island effect and improve people’s and the environment’s health in several ways.

They provide shade and block incoming solar radiation, lowering temperatures by several degrees. They also release water vapor, which can help cool temperatures. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere in their wood and roots, absorb gases and provide a place for harmful air particles to land.

At the same time, according to the U.S. Forest Service, trees provide mental health benefits such as stress reduction, improved mood, and a sense of well-being due to increased exposure to nature.

Cities across the country and the world have documented the long-term effects of planting trees strategically in urban areas.

In Chicago, Illinois, according to studies, neighborhoods with higher tree canopy cover have experienced temperature reductions of up to 2.7–3.8°C compared to areas with little or no tree canopy.

Similarly, in Medellin, Colombia, temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of their program installing green corridors, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change, the Secretary of Environment of Medellin reported.

Limitations

Trees are one solution that can help residents in South Dallas combat extreme heat, but Castro Mikoy said the initiative needs to be combined with other solutions to the area’s problems.

Displacement, making ends meet, and food insecurity are some issues facing South Dallas residents that make heat waves even more damaging for them.

Silvia Herrera, 48, a Jubilee resident, avoids turning on lights and household appliances during the day in the summer to keep her home cooler and reduce her electricity bills. She said her bill is around $500 in the peak summer months.

“You have to make decisions such as when you turn on the A/C and what things to avoid to spend less energy so the bill [electricity] is not too high because then I can’t pay for it,” Herrera said.

Planting trees and having the ecosystem to purchase, transport, and maintain them can also be expensive. The South Dallas Greening Initiative was able to come to life because of the grant Texas Trees secured. Not all cities or organizations can afford this type of solution, which is a limitation to replicating this program everywhere.

Community First

Through the five-year plan, Brittani Hite, strategic director of Ethos Equity Consulting, which is working with Texas Trees on the initiative, said there should be no surprises for the residents.

The project is for the community and by the community, said Hite.

“We understand that the solutions are already within the community,” Hite said. “South Dallas residents know what they want. They know what they need, but because of environmental and ultimately systemic racism, unfortunately, we lack green spaces, trees and other basic necessities in our city’s Black and brown neighborhoods.”

From Hite’s perspective, the conversations of the Jubilee moms after the Zumba classes to Stephen’s dream of having community gardens that work with the wants and needs of the South Dallas community will have an impact on finding the right solution.

María Ramos Pacheco wrote this story as part of a climate solutions fellowship with the Solutions Journalism Network. Did you know that what you just read was a solutions journalism story? It didn’t just examine a problem; it scrutinized a response. By presenting evidence of who is making progress, we remove any excuse that a problem is intractable.