Public housing residents get cool reprieve

AUGUSTA - Residents of 13 public housing complexes throughout Augusta will get their upstairs air-conditioners reinstalled over the next two weeks. <br> <br> Eighty-three residents were told in early April that the window units in their subsidized apartments were fire hazards. <br> <br> The Augusta Housing Authority&#39;s board of directors voted unanimously Thursday to begin reinstalling the air-conditioners. <br> <br> The housing board, in cooperation with the city Fire Department and Augusta commissioners, will ask the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for an exemption from new federal codes, which say window-mounted air-conditioning units are not permitted in rooms with fewer than two windows. <br> <br> ``A significant number of tenants in affected units are elderly and cannot, without substantial risk to their health and safety, survive temperatures that routinely exceed 95 degrees during the unbearable, hot summers indicative of living in the South,&#39;&#39; the letter to HUD officials reads. <br> <br> There are about 2,000 subsidized units in Augusta, and the HUD mandate affects about 200 units, according to the exemption request. Officials said 83 units had to have air conditioners removed.