10 Aug 20th - Aug 26th, 2026 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Sidewalk Standoff A woman’s heat crisis sets off a squabble in the Zone. BY CLARISSA SOSIN T he advocate spoke gently to the slumped-over woman propped up against her on the curb. “Anna, they are going to put you in the ice bag,” Sophia Elicia said. “You have to wake up. Hey, baby, they are going to put you in the ice bag, OK?” It was just after 10:30 in the morning on Aug. 1, and Phoenix was in the middle of a heat wave. Temperatures were already well over 100 degrees, on the way to 116. Anna, who was homeless and lived in the encamp- ment near downtown Phoenix known as the Zone, was suffering from possible heat stroke and, possibly, an overdose. Elicia held her up while firefighters placed bags of ice on her body to cool her down so they could take her to the hospital. Nearby stood a woman dressed in all black with “EMT” in large white letters emblazoned on the back of her shirt. She and three security guards had responded to the scene from the nearby Key Campus, a homeless solutions hub in the heart of the Zone. Slung over her shoulder was a red backpack with a white cross on the front, a medical kit that the EMT had just finished packing up. “Do you see what happened here?” Elicia said to her, suddenly irate. “You didn’t call 911 regardless of your training. If these ice bags hadn’t been on her, her temperature would have been even more elevated —” “You done?” one of the security guards said, trying to cut her off. “No, I’m not fucking done!” Elicia yelled. “They are about to put her in an ice bag!” “You better watch how you talk,” the security guard interjected. “You are going to be hearing from me!” she yelled. “She should have called 911 earlier before playing fucking doctor on the street!” A summer of stress for Phoenix’s homeless Anna did make it to the hospital and received care. But the confrontation over her emergency did not end well. The guards, who work for Lionheart Security, pushed Elicia and her partner, Jessica Spencer, onto nearby umbrellas that were providing shade to a homeless man, breaking them. The dispute, captured on video by the advocates, epitomizes the chaos of trying to serve homeless people on Phoenix’s streets. As service providers and advocates work to help people through the potentially fatal heat — in a summer when the city has decided to curtail how and where people can offer help to the homeless — conflict is inevitably rising, with lives on the line. Maricopa County this year counted nearly 10,000 homeless people living in the county. Spencer and Elicia are advocates who provide aid to people living on the streets in the Zone. Elicia also runs the Instagram account @unshelteredphx, and regularly films interactions between homeless people and police. She asked to be identi- fied only by her first and middle names out of fear of retaliation. The couple said that the Aug. 1 incident captured the callous approach to homeless people who remain on the streets by the city and some employees of the contractors working with the homeless service providers in the area. The EMT and secu- rity guards should have called 911 immedi- ately, Elicia and Spencer said. Or at the very least asked Anna if she wanted them to. Instead, the EMT tried to cool Anna down herself without a working thermometer while she sat on a blanket that a heat gun used by the advocates registered at 140 degrees. Meanwhile security guards hovered, trying to intimidate them, Spencer and Elicia said, and brushed off the suggestion of calling 911. >> p 12 A woman suffering a heat emergency in the Zone on Aug. 1, 2026, set off a confrontation among those responding to her. (Jessica Spencer) | NEWS |
