Tom Baker has been homeless since he was 13 years old. He is now 43.
He and his partner, Crystal, have been living in the Columbia woods for the past eight months.
“I used to live under a bridge, I used to live in fields, I used to just have a tarp, now I got a tent,” Baker said. “I’ve got all my needs out there.”
Baker and his “old lady” — he says with endearment — stay in a four-person tent. Their “little special area” features a patio-like area with a tarp hanging over it, stacked wood nearby for their fire pit and blankets around everything.
Baker doesn’t prefer to stay in a shelter, but when the temperature dips below 25 degrees, he now has options through partnerships among groups providing services for people experiencing homelessness. For those like Baker, a more sophisticated safety net of services has emerged.
On cold nights, Baker said he takes advantage of a city-funded warming center hosted by Turning Point, which typically operates as a day center with showers, coffee and laundry machines.
“(Turning Point) is just a warm environment pretty much. They make it welcome,” Baker said. “So you ain’t gotta be outside and everything, you can take a shower, you can watch movies and basically be yourself and do what you got to do.”
Turning Point, a ministry of Wilkes Boulevard United Methodist Church, began contracting with the City of Columbia in October 2022 to provide temporary overnight warming center services in the basement between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Previously, the church operated a warming center for 10 days in 2022, independent from Turning Point.
The city of Columbia began offering a temporary overnight warming shelter in the REDI offices in the winter of 2018, then moved those services to the Wabash Bus Station near downtown, before contracting with Turning Point last year.
“Our goal was to keep people alive,” Trapp said. “If everyone had all their fingers and toes come spring, we would celebrate.”
During this time, the city also has been incrementally raising the temperature at which temporary warming shelters should open, said Kari Utterback, the senior planner for the City of Columbia Public Health and Human Services. When the community asked to do so, the city heard their “cries of empathy” and answered, she said.
For those who seek shelter during the chill of the day, Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services coordinates a network of warming centers: Columbia’s Activity and Recreation Center, City Hall, Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services, Columbia Public Library, Salvation Army, Salvation Army Harbor House and St. Francis House. All are available during normal business hours.
In addition to providing hand warmers, showers, laundry machines, a mailing address and lockers, Turning Point’s most essential provision is not tangible: encouragement.
“You know, trying to encourage and let people know that you’re loved, you’re supported and we rockin’ with you,” said Darren Morton, the executive director for the day center.
Room at the Inn traditionally operated as a winter-only shelter for three and a half months out of the year. Last year, they moved into a new building which doubled its capacity.
“That helps give me confidence,” said John Trapp, the executive director for Room at the Inn. “It’s never a good thing when you turn somebody away on a cold night. Because at the end of the day, you got to be able to rescue your brain and go to sleep. And it’s hard to do that when, you know, you turn somebody away, and you don’t know what the outcome of that will be.”
This year, the organization opened its doors earlier than ever before, beginning Oct. 29.
“The fact that RATI is already open, and people are already out of the inclement weather is just such a burden off my heart honestly,” Utterback said.
Over the next few months, RATI will be evolving from an emergency shelter with the goal of keeping people alive for the winter into a transitional shelter operating year-round. They will offer assessments and treatment plans for all guests to lead them to services for housing.
The partnerships between homeless services is “more streamlined than ever before,” according to Stephanie Yoakum, the operations manager for CoMo Mobile Aid Collective.
Because most of the services do not run 24/7, braiding their services together helps unhoused individuals find warmth as well as support.
Loaves and Fishes offers a meal and shelter every evening, and Room at the Inn supplies a shuttle service from their location at 5:45 p.m. Breakfast is served in the morning, and every day starting at 7:45 a.m., the shuttle travels to Turning Point.
“We’re all in the same fight,” Morton said. “I think any one group that’s out here doing this work, helping this population and thinks they’re doing more than the next is dead wrong. You know, it takes truly a community, a village, to make this work.”
Room at the Inn does most of its outreach through community partners including CoMo Mobile Aid Collective, Columbia Police Department, and mental health service providers New Horizons and Burrell Behavioral Health.
Turning Point and the Salvation Army Harbor House can take on potential overflow from Room at the Inn.
“Feet take a beating in the winter,” Yoakum said. “They are constantly sweating inside boots.
All of these institutions share the same hope: to make sure everyone has the same number of appendages for spring.
“Our goal was to keep people alive,” Trapp said. “If everyone had all their fingers and toes come spring, we would celebrate.”
Ashley Ukah, a Turning Point patron, is going on his second winter being unhoused. He found out that a healthy, athletic unhoused individual whom he has known on and off since middle school lost four fingers last winter.
He heard people cracking jokes about it at work, thinking they were messing around until he saw the amputated fingers himself.
“And I don’t know about you, but to me that, like, that’s serious, that’s shocking, that’s scary to me. You lost fingers?” Ukah said. “Your whole quality of life is changed from something like that.”
It’s the elements of precipitation like rain and snow that exacerbate this. Those with a tent can pack snow around their area to stay warm, but rain proves to be a different issue.
“I can’t stand a raindrop hitting me in the back of my head or my neck or my ear,” Morton said. “That’s when I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, people are just standing out in there somewhere.’ You know? It’s a challenge.”
Those who are unsheltered deal with the added stress of trying to find warm peace and quiet, Yoakum said. “A shelter environment isn’t for everyone, no matter how much we wish it were.”
“Some individuals really need solitude,” she said. “And they don’t do well in the shelter environment. So we’re touching base with them making sure that they’re still comfortable for the night.”
CoMo Mobile Aid Collective hosts a Fabulous Fall Foot Fest twice a year with a medical pedicure station setup, Yoakum said. Nurses assess and clean individuals to send them off as fungus-free as possible, which started as an initiative to address frostbite.
“Feet take a beating in the winter,” Yoakum said. “They are constantly sweating inside boots. They don’t really get a chance to properly dry throughout the day for individuals constantly walking and trying to stay warm, and feet get gross and soggy and start falling off.”
The mobile organization began in the winter of 2018, and eventually hot cocoa became their signature “because almost 100% of the time people will talk to you if you have a cup of hot cocoa,” Yoakum said.
“A cup of hot cocoa has gone a long way in building rapport with these individuals and talking to them to see what their needs might be for the night.”
Going into winter, CoMo Mobile Aid Collective also organizes a boot drive and puts in a large order for thermals, blankets, bags and more. They fill their storage up to the tippy top with heavy winter layers, Yoakum said.
When it’s wet and below 45 degrees or dry and below 35 degrees, they are on the streets for a minimum of two hours, typically from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. During this time, they make contact with people by offering rides to the shelter, hand warmers, hot cocoa or blankets.
“We do enjoy the mobility factor rather than being another permanent space and location for comfort — which we wish Columbia had more of,” Yoakum said. “We enjoy right now at least, filling in those gaps and simply providing mobile services which seems to be an area that other public services lack.”
Partnerships between service providers have been ongoing for many years, and Yoakum can “tangibly see the difference in services versus a few years ago.”
“(We can) check with Room at the Inn to make sure they’ve got a male cot open or a female cot open and take that person right over there,” Yoakum said. “So unhoused individuals in Columbia now are receiving a lot more one-on-one evening contact.”
For Morton, it’s difficult to know that he’s going to go home to a warm bed at night while the people he “cares about very deeply” don’t have the same.
“I can’t imagine what all the stressors that they got going on, trying to figure out where you’re gonna sleep, where your next meal is coming from, and how you’re going to keep your toes not falling off and then try to figure out the small things,” Morton said.
Ukah’s most “realistic” hope is for a mild winter because “I can’t really say I hope for anything outside of finding stable housing.” A mild winter is “something that’s constantly in the forefront of my mind,” Ukah said.
Trapp is crossing his fingers to avoid subzero temperatures but is confident in all the local agencies’ abilities to “keep folks warm and safe.”
“I get paid to worry about everything that could go wrong. So I’m constantly worrying,” Trapp said. “But I’m also confident that we’re more prepared than we ever have been.”
