Patrick Dominic Ballerio has been homeless on and off in Columbia since 1985. He said for many years there weren’t really resources for unhoused folks when the weather got bad, so he and his community relied on each other and a single house, which they called “the Batcave.”
“We were more like a family, so, if it were snowing like this and it was bad, we'd send out a search party to go find the rest and we would find them and take them to the Batcave because that's all we had,” Ballerio said. “As long as we were all together and we were warm, everything was, you know, all copacetic.”
He said he and his wife survived outside through many Missouri winters by going to the "Batcave," if it got too dangerous, and by weatherproofing their tent – sometimes they would dig a 4- or 5-foot-deep hole and bury their tent, pack snow around their tent to increase the insulation and even use heaters or controlled fires inside to stay warm.

“I got a picture of me and my wife… sitting inside our tent,” Ballerio said. “But the inside looks like a walk-in freezer because the condensation of us breathing.”
But this year things are different - there are now community resources to keep unhoused people safe in the winter. Ballerio’s wife has passed away and he was asked by Darren Morton to come inside and help with the local emergency warming center at Turning Point in downtown Columbia.
“Darren asked me about a week ago, and goes, ‘Well, Pat, are you ready to come down from out of the woods?” Ballerio said. “He [Darren] goes, ‘you know you always have a place here, because you helped start this place…’ and I said, ‘yeah, I think it's about time.’”
Morton is the executive director of Turning Point, the local day center for unhoused people, but since October 2020 he’s also been responsible for Columbia’s emergency warming center, which opens at Turning Point when the temperature at night falls below 25 degrees.
“We keep evolving each year, finding different ways to keep people safe, keep this being a place that people enjoy coming and they feel safe and comfortable sleeping at,” Morton said.

Morton said they open the doors to the center around 7 p.m., and space is first come, first serve for about 25 men and 10 women. He said a stay at the center isn’t fancy – people are given a bedroll, a pillow and blanket and a movie before bed – but at least it’s warm.
He added that a lot of the people he sees are those who only come inside as a last resort. Maybe they’re mentally ill or were suspended from Room at the Inn, the city’s full-time homeless shelter - but regardless, they prefer to stay independent and outside.
But when it gets this cold – frostbite, hypothermia and even carbon monoxide poisoning from using heaters inside tents with improper ventilation become real risks.

“We want to take the overflow. We want to take the problem child,” Morton said. “We want the one that's having a hard time over there, the one that's causing conflict, come here, stay with us.”
Morton said he stays in constant contact with the other shelters in town, Room at the Inn and Salvation Army’s Harbor House, to ensure that everyone who needs it can spend the night inside.
But this can be hard on Turning Point staff. They’re already working at the day center, which serves, on average, more than 100 people a day and is open from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Vincel Tigue is one of those staff members. Tigue said he works a part day at Turning Point and then comes back around 7:00 p.m. to work part of the overnight shift, as well.
An unusually cold early winter meant the warming center was open for 23 out of the first 27 days in January – serving about 40 people each night.
“Right now I am hanging on a string. It could be a long haul, but joy comes in the morning,” Tigue said. “It doesn't last that long, you know, two months, three months out of 12, you know, ‘Hey, I can do it.’”
Tigue says he was once homeless himself and loves the chance to give back and help others. He’s now one of a handful of staff members that run the warming center. Some do check-ins, watch people’s bags overnight or ensure the center is actually conducive to rest.
He says they’re lucky to also have the help of their so-called “rockstars", like Robert Dunbar, Jr.
"Rockstars" are currently unhoused people who have proven themselves to be helpful and trustworthy. While they don’t get paid, they do get responsibilities and a separate, more private area in which to sleep and relax with their own cots.
Dunbar said his responsibilities include making sure people are following the center’s rules when it comes to bathroom usage and reporting to paid staff, such as Morton or Tigue, if something goes wrong.
He said he understands it costs the city money to keep the center open, but at the end of the day, “it's worth funding for lives, to save lives.”
He and fellow rockstar Patrick Dominic Ballerio said they understand why an unhoused person would want to stay outside and out of a building with rules and expectations, but they both agreed that there’s still a point when all people should head inside.
“Your pride will kill you faster than anything," Ballerio said. “It's better to save face than don't and find yourself or your friend dead in the alley somewhere frozen to death."
