Communicating the need for climate change adaptation has been described as an urgent global and national challenge. However, there is limited understanding of how to communicate this issue to people from low socioeconomic vulnerable urban groups in developed nations. This paper presents preliminary results of research that is investigating the challenges of communicating climate change adaptation to such groups in Adelaide, Australia. Results of a survey that was undertaken by 110 participants living below the poverty line in suburban Adelaide are presented and indicate that the media logic employed by state climate change adaptation planners targeting this group may need reconsideration and that the present approaches used are in danger of having unintended consequences. Amendments are required in part due to very low levels of trust in democratic institutions charged with communicating climate change adaptation to society. The results also suggest that media consumption in this group is largely confined to commercial television and Facebook and that seasonal factors may be an important consideration when designing communications specifically for vulnerable groups in urban Adelaide.