(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, the first installment of our four-part series with Arizona Luminaria, Mobile Homes, The Last Affordable Housing?

(Mark) The thing that really sets Tucson apart as a site of manufactured housing is how much of it there is for city of our size.

(Tom) Meet some of the Hopi artists keeping the Kachina doll carving traditional alive.

(Tayron) Even though these are considered traditional style Hopi dolls, today they're an art form.

(Tom) As the new basketball season starts, we look back on the Wildcats' 1988 run to the final four.

(Steve) This is unbelievable.

I never thought I'd be down on the football field hearing all this.

(Tom) And poet Alison Deming has some questions for a Sonoran Desert icon.

(Alison) Does anything thrill you?

A mountain lion scratching its backside on your spines?

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated I'm Tom McNamara.

You know nearly 10% of the people in Pima County live in mobile homes.

Now those homes once represented affordability and a foothold in the American dream.

But record high temperatures and deteriorating park conditions have made that dream into something fragile these days.

What was built for comfort has become a front line in the fight to survive the realities of living in the desert.

This is part one of a collaborative series between AZPM News and Arizona Luminaria reporter Yana Kunichoff.

An investigation into communities most at risk and the people fighting to stay housed in today's changing climate.

[Nostalgic Music] (Yana) In the 1970s, mobile home living in Pima County promised a smooth entry into the dream of home ownership.

Working families and retirees could buy standalone homes in vibrant communities without the crushing cost of a traditional mortgage.

Fifty years later, mobile homes are the largest source of non-subsidized affordable housing in the region.

[TV static] But as time has gone on, park infrastructure and homes built decades ago have aged.

And, crucially, Tucson has gotten hotter.

That's left many residents in a deadly bind.

(Mark) A manufactured home is a factory-built home on a permanent chassis that was built after 1976.

And this is when the federal government put in place basically a universal national housing code for a particular type of housing right?

Before that, there was factory-built housing on permanent chassis, but it wasn't regulated at the national level.

So it might not even have been regulated at all.

But it was basically a patchwork quilt of regulatory standards for this housing type.

And as a result of that, oftentimes the standards were very low.

There were no requirements for them to have any insulation.

The wiring was low-quality aluminum wiring or materials that were not really well suited to the southwest desert region.

(Paul) We're burning up over here.

It's hot.

(Maria) Es como una bomba de tiempo.

En calor es super, pero super caliente.

It's horrible.

I think I recorded 87 in the trailer with a thermometer.

(Cheyenne) Extreme heat events are actually the number one weather-related killer in this country.

(Maria) Por esa razón te puedo decír que es muy peligroso.

(Mark) The thing that really sets Tucson apart as a site of manufactured housing is how much of it there is for a city of our size.

We're the only city in the United States, last time I checked, umm, with Metro Tucson being just over a million people, with more than 10% of its housing stock in manufactured housing.

We also have certain areas of the city that are totally dominated by manufactured housing.

For instance, the area of Flowing Wells, the dominant housing form there is manufactured housing.

There's no other housing type that is more common than manufactured housing.

So we really have these sort of sub-areas of the cities of Metro Tucson that are basically manufactured housing cities within a city.

(Yana) What began as a dream of affordable independence has, over decades, become a dangerous reality.

In 2024, Tucson had 112 days of 100-degree-plus heat, more than any year on record so far, according to the National Weather Service.

The story of Hummingbird Harvest shows the tragic stakes of heat in Tucson's mobile home parks.

In July 2024, the small North Tucson park experienced an 11-day electricity outage.

During that time, temperatures soared above 105 degrees.

On August 7th, one of the park's residents was found dead inside his home.

Paul Dacon was 70 years old.

There was no electricity in his home and no air conditioning.

The official cause?

Environmental heat exposure.

(Cheyenne) In epidemiology, we're looking at things like their social determinants of health and their environmental determinants of health and seeing how those came into play with how they were exposed to what made them sick, whether it be lead in their water or excessive heat exposure.

We know that as folks age, they become more vulnerable to heat.

That's both just an effect of aging, but also the fact that older adults tend to have those chronic conditions.

So they're more vulnerable to heat-related illnesses and potentially dying of those things a lot more than the younger population.

(Yana) Between May 2023 and September 2024, heat was a factor in 114 indoor deaths across Pima County.

According to Arizona Luminaria's analysis of medical examiner data.

Nearly a third of those deaths happened in mobile homes or RVs, far out of proportion to the number of mobile homes in the region.

(Cheyenne) People have very long not recognized that extreme heat events are actually the number one weather-related killer in this country.

We always think about tornadoes and hurricanes because we see all of the infrastructure destruction, but it affects populations and people the most.

(Yana) Residents may have ACs in their homes, but whether the park's electricity grid can keep up with usage or meters can give accurate readings depends on park management.

(Paul) The electric has been going off three to four years.

(Laura) But this is the worst year.

(Miryam) It was constant for June.

It was constant every day.

Every day.

- Every day (Paul) sometimes an hour and a half, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes more.

(Miryam) The two-year-old, she told me, "Mommy, I'm hot," and I was like, "we're getting in the car."

and I got my, the three of them in the car with the AC on.

I suffer enough, but not my kids.

(Yana) How do you cope?

(Laura) You go outside.

even though it's hot outside.

Spray yourself with water bottles.

(Paul) That's about it.

(Laura) Go to somebody's house.

(Paul) Yeah, we go I put my little one in the tub.

(Cheyenne) The way that people need to start thinking about heat in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, is a little bit more seriously because it's not necessarily about how hot the high is during the day, but about the duration and how many days that it's hot or how cool it gets at night.

And so, we don't necessarily have the same sense of reprieve that we had before.

And those are things that are both impacts of climate change and then also the heat island effect and radiant heat are much more extreme in these areas where we have mobile home and manufactured housing.

(Yana) As the heat rises and with it the risk of heat-related deaths, local governments and advocates are working to inform vulnerable communities about extreme weather.

In 2024, a coalition of mobile home resident advocacy groups and academics studying the issue helped change state law to mitigate the impact of extreme heat.

The new law barred landlords from restricting certain kinds of air conditioners or cooling devices because they were noisy or unsightly.

And this summer, Tucson, Pima County and nonprofit partners held a series of door-knockings to educate residents about the dangers of heat.

(Sophie) We call these like heat canvassing events We get groups of volunteers to go out into surrounding neighborhoods in the community and they essentially give out heat safety information packets.

(Regina) This year, we're doing it based on data and we're out here to be able to prevent deaths and heat-related illnesses.

We're really distributing these heat scenarios of our city where we have traditionally seen 911 calls related to heat and so this is where we see the most need.

(Isaac) Morning.

We're just giving out information on like the heat and on the cooling stations and stuff like that.

[Door knocking] (Oscar) Hello, good morning anybody home?

De como protegerse ahorita con el, con el calor.

We know that some of the mobile homes here are a little bit isolated and disconnected from each other and so the more information people have and the more the community stays connected, the less likely heat illness comes up.

(Regina) Well, I grew up in a manufactured home in the area of Yuma.

Somerton, Arizona and so I personally know how hot they can get and many of them are old and are not up to par in terms of living conditions.

(Oscar) I think it's something that makes us feel like we're making a difference and if we can provide a little bit of information and a cooling towel to keep people cool during these triple-digit temperatures, I think it's worthwhile.

(Cheyenne) We've seen the number of heat-related illnesses and heat-related deaths continue to trend upward in a way that is very concerning for us.

Hello, I'm just gonna leave information right here.

(Yana) The region is getting hotter and more expensive.

Without protections, mobile home residents are on the front lines of both.

(Miryam) It's frustrating because you're like, how do I keep my kids cool or you know how do we keep ourselves cool?

For thousands of Arizonans, surviving the heat is only part of the struggle.

Those rising temperatures are matched by rising costs and growing tensions with management.

And those folks who are fighting to survive the heat have another threat and that's eviction.

Next week on Arizona Illustrated, we bring you part two of Mobile Homes, The Last Affordable Housing, where we will look at practices that tenants say some park owners use to force them out and how owning your home doesn't always mean you get to keep it.

November is Native American Heritage Month and here in Arizona we're fortunate to be home to 22 federally recognized tribes that enrich the culture and heritage and traditions of our state.

So next we take you to Flagstaff to see the rich artistic legacy of Cachina doll carving by expert craftsmen from the Hopi tribe.

♪ SOFT STEELDRUMS (Tayron) That one is the Yung'a, Nawuk'china.

That represents the prickly cactus.

A lot of our dolls—or kachina— actually represent desert animals and desert plants, like the tea.

That's a Kukober.

A lot of kachinas represent weather, climate, various animals, neighboring tribes, different gods.

Shoot, that's, it's endless.

(Dr.

Kelley) We have about 1,500 dolls in our collection.

Kachina's English, Katsina how you say it, in Hopi.

And that's the spirit being.

And then a Kachina doll or a Katsintihu is the representation, the carving in cottonwood.

A Kachina doll is made out of cottonwood, not any other kind of wood.

And it's specifically made out of the cottonwood roots.

And it should be made by a Hopi person, not someone from another tribe who doesn't have that tradition.

So I've got here a tobacco flower, Katsina doll from about 1920.

So it's the spiritual essence of the tobacco flower.

These are given to little girls as gifts to teach them about the Katsinim and help them develop a giving relationship with ancestors and the natural world.

This is called a cradle doll or a flat doll.

And these are given to little babies.

And they can chew on them, they can play with them.

It grows with the child in a sense.

So each time they get a gift, it's a little bit more elaborate.

Here's a good example of a doll for an older girl, maybe eight or ten years old, a doll that she can carry on her back in its cradleboard.

Just a miniature version of the cradleboard that she was probably carried in when she was an infant.

This is the early morning Kachina.

It represents the early morning part of the day.

So at some point in the late 1800s, museums started collecting these for display and traders started selling them to tourists.

So this became an art form throughout the 20th century.

And now we have master carvers working in many different styles.

This is a cactus Kachina doll, by Ernie Moore.

Here's a cradle doll.

This is by Tayron Polequaptewa.

It's a pretty simple one for him.

(Tayron) This is actually my first, first owl.

I never made one of these before and I thought I'd give it a shot, And it's pretty challenging.

Took me like almost a month.

And I just got done like about an hour ago today.

You have to have a really good piece of cottonwood root to carve everything on there.

Like with the legs, the loincloth, and everything.

Pretty much you won't see the back of it a lot.

And but nowadays we've been doing a lot more detail on the backs.

That's the Hilili.

This is more of like the distress type is what I've been doing for about, eh, five years now.

Lot of people tend to start copying your work and you just kind of want to be different.

I tried to make them look like, long, long time ago if they were like up on a wall, and someone was cleaning, and accidentally knocked them off and they fell behind a couch or something.

And it just stayed there forever.

And out on Hopi, we use wood stoves and a lot of coal and soot gets everywhere, dust gets everywhere.

And if you're finally cleaning that place, somebody like, "Hey, there's something down here."

Pick up a doll that's all dusty and beat up, and that's what these are now.

(Producer) Those are yours too?

(Tayron) Yeah, these are mine too.

This one's actually mine too.

This one is uh, Polik-mana.

Which translates into water maiden, the water maiden dancer.

This one here pretty much represents the clouds, cumulus clouds with the rain cloud altars and the plumes.

They represent the clouds.

This one took me about three months.

On and off, you know you work on it for a while, put it away, work on it for a while.

To get it almost perfect I'd have to measure.

Almost every feather that I cut, I had to measure to where it's all the same.

Then when I got to the headdress part, I said, "Uh oh, did I bite off too much that I could handle?"

[ TAYRON LAUGHS ] Then I started, oh man, but I just kept going hey, you started it, you better finish it.

And it's all freehand.

I don't use pencil.

If you use a pencil, it's hard to, uh, cover the sheen of the lead.

Most traditional style dolls have strings.

These were always hung up on walls in the Hopi homes.

You go to a house that had like few girls, their whole house would be lined with dolls up on the walls.

When they're hanging up it's almost like they're flying like in spirits.

Even though these are considered traditional style Hopi dolls, today they're an art form, and art is infinite.

The Arizona Men's Wildcat Basketball Team opens their season November 3rd against the Florida Gators, and we wish them well this year.

But now we're going to step back in time into our recently digitized archives to look at the Wildcat's first ever Final Four appearance back in 1988.

The big celebration in Tucson when they returned.

(Bill) The Basketcats rode down Broadway in style in a fleet of new convertibles.

The reception from Wildcat fans along the parade route certainly must have eased some of the pain of last Saturday night's loss to Oklahoma, which kept the Cats from advancing the last night's championship game.

Despite the heartbreak of Kansas City, it has been a storybook season for the Wildcats, who won 35 out of 38 games.

Even though the Basketcats are not bringing home a national basketball title, as far as the thousands of fans waiting for their heroes to arrive here at Arizona Stadium, there's no question.

They are still number one, numero uno.

My sister and me liked it when, because she's so happy she flew out, got up to the Final Four, and that's what I'm really proud of.

I've been a Cat fan for way back when Snowden was coach, so go Wildcats.

They're number one no matter what.

The best thing that ever happened to Tucson and an Arizona university.

They played a good year, and I'm proud of them.

What were you saying?

I said, "They're still number one."

By the time the cats pulled into the stadium, the crowd was ready.

[CHANTING] "U-of-A, U-of-A, U-of-A" [CHEERING LOUDLY] My duty today is to introduce to you someone who is recognized across this country.

And again, as I've tried the last two months, people say, "You not only got the greatest fans in America, but you've got the greatest coach in America."

[CHEERING LOUDLY] Some of you would do anything to get out of class.

Coming over here, Bobbi and I were talking and we said, "What in the world would have happened had we won?"

And my response is, "Win or lose, we've got the best fans in the entire world."

[CHEERING LOUDLY] Thank you.

This is unbelievable.

I never thought I'd be down on the football field hearing all this, but I'm thinking of coming out for quarterback next year.

So you might see me [CHEERING LOUDLY] Sean Elliot!

[CHEERING LOUDLY] We want to thank you guys, man this is unbelievable.

Harvey Mason told me on the way over here that he promised another song for next year.

Welcome to my block and I'll just sing it.

How's that?

Or do you want us to sing it now?

[PEOPLE SINGING] "W-I-L-D Wildcats!"

[SINGING] "Wild About the Cats" Next, in our ongoing collaboration with the Poetry Center, Guggenheim Fellowship-winning poet, Alison Deming, reads "Questions for a Saguaro," and it's illustrated by producer David Fenster, who reveals the inner life of a saguaro with time-bending stop-motion images.

[ LIGHT BUZZING ] [ CARS DRIVING ] [ CART ROLLING ] [ PAPER RUSTLING ] (Alison) "Not that I want to be a god or a hero.

Just to change into a tree.

Grow for ages, not hurt anyone."

Czeslaw Milosz.

If it takes you 100 years to grow your first arm, for how long do you feel the sensation of craving something new?

Did you ever feel impatient those years when someone put his shirt over your head and even with spines cutting through denim, it took decades to grow your way out of confinement?

Does it feel like gorging or fate when rain comes and you suck up every drop as fast as you can even if you starve the palo verde that sheltered your youth?

Sometimes people are thrilled to see you lined up in disarray like soldiers off-duty forever in the quiet desert.

Does anything thrill you?

A mountain lion scratching its backside on your spines?

Flowers erupting from your head?

Fruit loaded with seeds will move all you've learned from one rooted spot into new places called the future.

Does it mean for you joy or unburdening when those sweet packages fall to the ground?

[ CARS WOOSHING ] [ LIGHT BUZZING ] Like what you're seeing on Arizona Illustrated?

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I'm Tom McNamara and we'll see you again next week.