National discussions concerning unsheltered populations have stirred policymakers and community advocates to action, bringing heightened attention to the way cities are monitoring crime and safety intervention initiatives that target the homeless population.
Those discussions reached Columbia in the 2025 mayoral race, as homelessness and crime dominated the campaigns of Blair Murphy and Tanya Heath in their ultimately unsuccessful bids to unseat incumbent Barbara Buffaloe.
Heath posted a series of videos of interviews with homeless residents to social media while Murphy alluded to increasing crime, even though numbers suggest it's not on the rise.
In the 2024 city of Columbia community survey, 60% of respondents said they did not feel safe overall in Columbia, though 84% said they felt safe in their neighborhood during the day.
“Fear of crime is a real thing,” said Columbia Police Department chief Jill Schulde in a recent press conference in which she announced changes to CPD’s crime reporting methods.
The truth is, even with the new reporting methodology from CPD, crime rates are down across the board with crimes against property decreasing by 2.25%, crimes against society by 5.77% and crimes against persons down by 7.27%, Schlude said.
Breaking the Stigma
In Columbia, community advocates believe breaking the stigma of homelessness is one way to decrease the likelihood of victimization — including the perception that the homeless are disproportionately responsible for crime.
“The increased national polarization has just trickled down into our communities, we've seen a lot more division,” said Conrad Hake, Program Director at Love Columbia. “We've seen more othering of people that aren't like us, or don't seem like us, and I think that contributes to the spike we’ve seen in recent years.
Nowhere is that polarization more prevalent than in the posts and comments on “The Real Columbia Missouri,” a Facebook page which posts daily pictures and videos of homeless residents, and weekly lists of crimes and incidents in Columbia.
“Suns out, Urchins out,” reads the first line of a recent post on TRCM making reference to a slideshow of homeless people sitting on curbs, panhandling or sleeping.
“They’re making it to where it’s dangerous for the homeless people and it’s scaring the people that don’t know the homeless,” said Novah Shelton.
Shelton lives in transitional housing after being homeless for several years.
“I know this man out here, you might see him on the Real Columbia and think what a piece of crap because he’s sleeping on the corner, but really he’s a nice man that was a veteran that lost his home, doesn’t have a family anymore and no one cares that he’s outside,” he said.
With thousands of followers, the TRCM page has resonated with some residents, and its influence has been felt by the homeless outreach workers of Columbia and the targets of the posts themselves.
“Most of the folks I have talked to, especially folks who are downtown a lot have been featured online without their consent, and then if they see that, then they also have to see the barrage of comments that follow, making judgments about them, and that's incredibly hurtful, said Catherine Armbrust, Director of the COMO Mobile Aid Collective, “So there's online harassment, but there's also in-person harassment.”
Armbrust explained that over the past four years while working with CoMo Mobile Aid Collective (COMAC), she has heard everything from homeless residents being pepper sprayed to accounts of stalking, to drive-by attacks with pellet guns.
Tara Foster has lived in Columbia since 2004 and has been homeless with her husband, Thomas, for three years.
“Luckily, I haven’t seen me or my husband on that page, thank god, but I’ve seen other people that I know. And I think that it paints a really, really bad representation of homelessness,” Foster said, “What Real Columbia does is really damaging to the homeless community, they just look for negativity, they just pick us as their pet project to mock and that’s not right, and it’s inhumane.”
Foster emphasized the importance of empathy in the local conversation around homelessness.
“Before judging homeless people, you really need to try to talk to homeless people: get their story, how this happened, and listen to what they’re trying to do to change it,” Foster said, “A lot of people out here do have incomes, they do have jobs, it's just hard to get affordable housing, that’s one of the main hurdles that we’re facing right now, to try to get affordable housing.”
Hsun-ta Hsu is an associate Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill school of social work who previously worked at the University of Missouri and did research on firearm violence and victimization among homeless youth in St. Louis and Los Angeles.
Hsu explained their research identified housing is the best strategy to uplifting and empowering the unsheltered.
“What we found is that without the roof on top, individuals experiencing homelessness alongside victimization, and their mental health related issues, are more likely to be victimized,” Hsu said.
“In our previous study, we found that once they are being put into housing, for example, permanent supportive housing, they feel safe because now they have a door, they can lock, they don't have to force themselves to interact with others.”
There is a distinct lack of data on victimization among Columbia’s homeless population which has grown following the national trend with a 19% increase in unsheltered individuals. The U.S. Department of Housing and urban Development found in its annual report that the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 18% between 2023-2024.
“There is no drop-in center in the Columbia Area,” Hsu said. “Without drop-in center services, it's really hard to know how many people, how many youth are experiencing homelessness or are experiencing unstable housing, and it's hard to know whether they’re being victimized.”
City-related Solutions
As of now, homeless outreach and services are shared among four primary organizations: Room at the Inn shelter which is open nightly for up to 85 individuals, Turning Point at Wilkes Boulevard Church which is open during the day and provides service resources and food, Love Columbia which connects individuals and families with transitional resources and housing and COMAC which provides a mobile soup kitchen, pop-up medical services and other survival amenities.
A new outreach center known as the Opportunity campus is under construction and will provide a 24 hour shelter, medical center and transitional resources. Additionally, the campus will serve as a drop-in center. The opening of the campus has been pushed to March, 2026.
Columbia is not alone in its struggle to combat homelessness, with stretched resources and a tense local conversation, but local leaders like Conrad Hake and Catherine Armbrust believe that understanding and care are necessary and possible.
“I hope that we might find the opportunity then to really get to know people that are experiencing some of these issues, not treat them as a stereotype or at arm's length, but get the opportunity to hear their stories and learn more about what life is like through their eyes, Hake said. ”I think we'll find ourselves in a place of more compassion and empathy and less fear.”