Columbia leaders want Transitions, other homeless services moved from downtown to address crime

Transitions Homeless Center and Oliver Gospel Mission should be moved out of downtown Columbia to help curb crime and sanitation problems, Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said during a press briefing Tuesday, flanked by other City Council members and public safety and homeless services leaders.

Rickenmann Tuesday formally announced “Operation Hope and Order,” the name given to the city’s ongoing work to address homelessness, particularly in the busy downtown corridor.

City leaders say they’ve made aggressive strides toward addressing homelessness in Columbia but declared it is time for other community partners as well as the state to take action as well.

Rickenmann’s proposal to create a new campus dedicated to providing services specifically for residents experiencing homelessness came alongside open-ended pleas for change from law enforcement and the city’s homeless services director.

Ongoing work

The idea to move homeless services out of downtown isn’t new. In 2013, the city was featured in a New York Times article that declared the city was evicting people experiencing homelessness from view after the city council tentatively approved discussing moving the homeless shelter up to 15 miles away from downtown.

Rickenmann, too, has previously shared the view that the city’s homeless services need to be relocated.

Despite critics, Kameisha Heppard, the city’s homeless services director, also supports moving Transitions and Oliver Gospel Mission. It’s not about moving people out of view, she said, but about having all the necessary resources in one place.

The city has kept a focus on homelessness for the last few years.

In November, after more than a year of talking about the problem, the city acted, paying for 50 pallet shelters and building Rapid Shelter Columbia in just 70 days. The pallet village at 191 Calhoun St. allows the city to place chronically homeless residents in temporary shelters while connecting them with services such as health care, addiction treatment and more.

The Columbia Police Department, too, has made recent efforts to address issues surrounding homelessness. It launched a Pathways Unit in 2021 that includes a mental health clinician and an officer trained in crisis intervention. That unit often is deployed when police are called to respond to a resident experiencing homelessness.

That unit has been able to refer people to social services rather than arrest people, Police Chief Skip Holbrook said Tuesday.

“Those are our success stories,” Holbrook said. “You could argue arrests are failures.”

The city’s focus on homelessness has garnered some results. Since launching the rapid shelter in November, nearly 300 residents have been referred to the program. More than 100 people have been connected with resources including mental health care and substance abuse treatment.

Eighteen graduates of the program now have full-time housing, said Heppard. Additionally, the city has purchased 34 Greyhound bus tickets to help people get to family in other cities.

City Manager Teresa Wilson said the city’s Rapid Shelter program is scalable and could be used statewide as well.

“We need to stop all the talking ... and act,” Wilson added.

Tough love

Despite the successes, Rickenmann and other city leaders say it is not enough.

“There has got to be a shared responsibility to address this problem” said Holbrook, who lamented the culture around homelessness and crime, adding that those perpetrating the crimes are a select few people.

Some area businesses also have exacerbated problems. The Circle K gas station on Elmwood Avenue and the Shell Pitt Stop convenience store across the street accounted for 1,200 combined service calls this year, Holbrook said, often for violent crimes.

The city saw similar problems at the Main’s Best convenience store on Main Street before declaring it a nuisance and closing the establishment. Since shuttering that operation, Rickenmann said they’ve seen calls decrease.

The city is becoming more aggressive with repeat offenders, Holbrook said of enforcement in the area. In the last two weeks, the police department has arrested 73 people, he said.

The city doesn’t want to put people in jail, Rickenmann said, but there “may be some tough love” for certain residents.

The police department also is planning to begin contracting with a securing company to help with some activities downtown, like checking properties for trespassers.

“What we’re doing right now is short-term fixes,” Rickenmann said. “We cannot continue to do it fragmented. It is clearly not working.”

Long term, he wants to see Oliver Gospel Mission and Transitions Homeless Shelter relocated into a new campus dedicated to homeless services. Both of those services currently reside in the heart of downtown.

For now, it’s just an idea. Rickenmann said no location has been identified. In response to a question from a reporter asking if other agencies have supported the idea, he said, “There’s no reason to get buy-in if you don’t have the location yet.”