For Masavi Perea, life in South Phoenix is measured in degrees.

Heat in Phoenix settles into the pavement by midmorning and lingers long after sunset. Bus stops offer little relief, and electricity bills climb as families try to keep their homes livable. On blocks without trees, the difference is immediate and sometimes dangerous.

Perea has lived in Phoenix for 30 years, and his neighborhood has some of the lowest tree canopy in the city and experiences some of the city’s highest temperatures. As a community organizer, Perea walks the streets of the neighborhood he calls home, helping residents understand the impacts of extreme heat and the changes that could benefit everyone.

“The work that I do is very important for me because I live here, my kids live here. My grandkids are going to live here,” he says. “I see people getting sick… and I feel that it is my responsibility to leave a better world than what I found.”

Perea works for Unlimited Potential, a South Phoenix–based community organization focused on supporting residents through education, health services and workforce development. Through a network of trained community health workers and trusted residents, the organization connects families to resources, builds neighborhood leadership and advances equitable solutions from within the community itself.

In recent years, that work has increasingly centered on trees.

Tree Equity as a health intervention

For Tawsha Trahan, Unlimited Potential’s director of healthy communities, the connection between canopy and health is inseparable.

When she began focusing more intentionally on the built environment, she conducted “windshield surveys,” driving through high- and low-income zip codes across Phoenix, documenting differences in sidewalks, green space and shade.

“It’s very eye-opening,” she says. “What you come back with is a list of a comparison of all the infrastructure that is in a high-income neighborhood and all the infrastructure that’s in a low-income neighborhood.”

Tree canopy was one of the most visible gaps.

Unlimited Potential approaches that gap through what Trahan calls a “one health perspective.”

“We think of the planet, we think of people, we think of plants and animals as all part of an ecosystem that makes a healthy person,” she says. “And trees, whether it’s your local park, your school or places that you gather, are very important.”

In Phoenix, where extreme heat regularly exceeds 110 degrees Fahrenheit, trees cool streets, reduce heat stress, lower energy costs and make outdoor activity safer. But access to those benefits is not equal.

Health education, block by block

Unlimited Potential’s approach begins not with data, but with people.

Community health workers go door to door, knocking, introducing themselves, asking residents about heat and neighborhood priorities. Outreach is conducted in both English and Spanish, ensuring language is not a barrier to participation or understanding.

“Community health workers are the heart of our organization,” Trahan says. “They live and work in the neighborhoods that they’re serving… they have the ability to be a trusted person in a neighborhood, which is critically important.”

Perea describes the approach as deeply relational.“The community is always willing to work,” he says. “Most of the time, they are just waiting for someone who is willing to work with them.”

Through workshops and neighborhood committees, residents identify priority blocks, schools and public spaces where shade is urgently needed. Tree action plans are developed collectively, and Unlimited Potential then works to secure funding and coordinate with partners, such as American Forests, to implement them.

The organization pairs tree planting with bilingual heat education, helping families understand heat illness, how to reduce exposure and how trees function as long-term protection. 

For Perea, the goal of this work is ownership because it changes long-term outcomes.

“If a tree is planted by a company, the tree is probably not going to grow,” Perea says. “But if a tree is planted by the community, that tree is going to become a part of the community… because taking care of a tree is taking care of a community.”

Unlimited Potential also strengthens local capacity through its Urban Nature arboriculture training program, offering paid training in tree planting and care to residents from historically disinvested neighborhoods.

“One of the reasons it helps us achieve Tree Equity is because our cohorts come from the same neighborhoods where there’s disinvestment,” Trahan says. “That’s a local economy generator within the specific neighborhoods that need trees the most.”

The result is more than canopy; it is economic opportunity, neighborhood leadership and long-term stewardship.

Leading the nation in Tree Equity

Phoenix’s commitment to Tree Equity extends beyond individual education and tree plantings. In 2021, Phoenix became the first city in the nation to formally commit to achieving Tree Equity, positioning the city as a national model for climate resilience grounded in equity.

American Forests has worked alongside the City of Phoenix, Maricopa County and regional partners, including Arizona Sustainability Alliance, to build a coordinated approach to urban forestry across the Valley. Through the Arizona Urban Forestry Roundtable, convened by American Forests with the City of Phoenix and Arizona Sustainability Alliance, municipal leaders, nonprofits and technical experts align strategy, share data and strengthen collaboration across jurisdictions.

This coordination ensures that Tree Equity is not a single program, but a shared regional priority.

Through Tree Equity Score, a data tool that measures canopy disparities at the neighborhood level, American Forests helps cities identify where investment is most urgently needed. The organization also provides funding, technical assistance and strategic support to frontline partners like Unlimited Potential, helping translate neighborhood action plans into funded, implementable projects.

Jake Simon, director of southwest urban forestry for American Forests, lives in Maricopa County, so the work is personal for him, too.

“The extreme heat that we face every day in the summer really opened my eyes to how important trees are as a nature-based solution and how inequitably they’re distributed across the U.S.,” he says.

The urgency is stark.

“In 2023, 645 people died from heat-related causes in Maricopa County, while in the same year 404 people died statewide in Arizona” Simon says. “So more people are dying from heat than from homicide now.”

Through partnership with the City of Phoenix, Maricopa County and organizations like Unlimited Potential, American Forests works to reframe trees as essential public infrastructure and public health protection.

“I help cities to really view trees as critical infrastructure, the same as gas, water and electric,” Simon says. “Trees are the best nature-based solution to extreme heat. We cannot air condition our way out of extreme heat.”

By combining community leadership, bilingual health education, workforce training and coordinated regional planning, Phoenix has emerged as a national leader in advancing Tree Equity where it matters most, in neighborhoods with residents who have been historically excluded and had the least shade.

The work is a model for others across the U.S.

Public health, rooted in equity