I run an HVAC business in Torrance. I don't usually write about anything outside the trade because I never wanted this site to look like it was selling anything other than honest heating and air work. But I'm starting something this month that I want my customers and the rest of the South Bay trades community to know about, so here it is.
Starting May 2026, Carson Heating & Air Conditioning is offering free HVAC service to homeless shelters and transitional housing programs across the South Bay. Labor and diagnostics are free. Parts are billed at my wholesale cost with no markup. If I'm pulling a serviceable used condenser, capacitor, or contactor off a residential upgrade, those go to a shelter facility instead of the scrap pile.
I'm calling it the Shelter Support Program because I'm a heating-and-air guy, not a marketer, and that's what it is.
Why this, and why now
If you live in Torrance, Manhattan Beach, or Rolling Hills and you only drive the 405 to work, you might not see the South Bay's homelessness picture day-to-day. Drive PCH from Lomita through Wilmington to San Pedro and it's a different story. Recent counts put unsheltered homelessness in Service Planning Area 8 — which covers our part of LA County — at roughly 4,800 people, with the heaviest concentration in Wilmington, Harbor City, and San Pedro.
The shelters and transitional-housing programs serving these folks run on tight budgets. The buildings are usually 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s commercial conversions — former motels, church annexes, storefront properties. The HVAC equipment is often original to the building. The maintenance budget is whatever's left after the program pays staff and feeds people. Which is to say: there usually isn't a maintenance budget at all.
When a shelter's AC fails in August, three things can happen:
- They pay an emergency call rate they can't afford — $400–$600 for a Sunday capacitor swap from a chain.
- They route families to a cooling center that's often already at capacity.
- They suspend operations for that wing of the building.
None of those are good outcomes. A contractor showing up on Sunday at parts cost is a small thing, but it's a real one.
The programs I'm starting with
I've reached out to three programs in the South Bay and harbor cities and committed to be their first-call HVAC contractor:
- Harbor Interfaith Services (San Pedro). Operates a family shelter, transitional housing, and a food pantry off Pacific Avenue. Has served the harbor area since 1975.
- Beacon Light Mission (Wilmington). Men's shelter and recovery program operating in Wilmington since 1972. Older building, older systems, year-round demand on the kitchen and dining hall HVAC.
- Family Promise of the South Bay. Rotates families through host congregation facilities across Torrance, Redondo Beach, and the harbor cities. Each host site has its own equipment quirks, so emergency calls can happen anywhere from Hermosa to Lomita.
I'm also open to one-off calls from other South Bay shelter or transitional-housing programs that find me — 1736 Family Crisis Center, Rainbow Services, PATH, the South Bay Center for Counseling, and others. If you're staff at one of these and you've got an HVAC problem, call me at (866) 982-3652 and identify yourself as calling for a shelter. There's no application or paperwork.
What the program covers
- Diagnostics — free, including drive time.
- Labor — free on repairs and tune-ups.
- Parts — billed at my wholesale cost. No markup. I'll show the invoice.
- Equipment donations — when I pull a working condenser, capacitor, contactor, fan motor, or thermostat off a residential upgrade, it goes to a shelter on the list first.
- Twice-a-year preventive maintenance — pre-summer AC tune-up and pre-winter heat check, free, scheduled in advance.
What's not covered: full system replacements. A new $9,000 install isn't something I can fund out of pocket. But I'll quote shelters at my own cost-plus-minimum-overhead, help them find grant funding (SoCal Edison has programs for nonprofits), and prioritize the install on my calendar.
A note to other South Bay trades
If you're a plumber, electrician, roofer, painter, or flooring contractor reading this — these programs need your skills too, and they don't have grant writers chasing down trade donations. They just operate the building and try to find help when something breaks.
What works, from a few conversations I've had setting this up:
- Call them; don't wait for them to find you. Facilities staff don't have time to research trades. A short introduction email or a stop-by is worth more than a website.
- Be specific. “I'll do drain-line snaking twice a year at parts cost” is useful. “Let me know if you ever need help” is not.
- Equipment donations beat cash for most shelters. A used-but-working water heater, condenser, or panel is worth more to them than to a salvage yard.
- The tax math usually doesn't make it pencil out. Don't go in expecting a write-off to cover the cost. The reason to do it isn't financial.
How customers can support this directly
You don't have to do anything. The program is funded out of my own business; no customer is being charged extra to subsidize shelter service. But if you want to support the programs themselves, here's where to go:
- Harbor Interfaith Services — harborinterfaith.org
- Beacon Light Mission — beaconlightmission.org
- Family Promise of the South Bay — familypromisesb.org
All three take volunteer hours, financial gifts, and in-kind donations (food, hygiene supplies, household goods for families transitioning out of shelter). All three are organizations I'm proud to put my business behind.
Closing thought
I've been turning wrenches in the South Bay for 22 years. The longer I've done this work, the more I've realized that a working air conditioner isn't really about comfort — it's about whether a building can do its job. A shelter is a building doing a hard job. Keeping the HVAC running is the smallest possible contribution to that work, but it's the one I know how to make.
If you're a shelter coordinator and you need HVAC help, call (866) 982-3652 and ask for me directly. If you're a homeowner and you just want to keep doing business with somebody whose values you share, that's all the thanks I need.
Have HVAC questions? Call (866) 982-3652 or use the contact form. — Emilio Solano