Homelessness, crime remain top concerns for Columbia residents, survey shows

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Survey results presented by the City of Columbia on Tuesday showed homelessness and crime remain top concerns for residents.

During a Tuesday work session to discuss the city’s strategic plan, officials went over responses it received from residents through several methods.

The city included feedback from its Social Point website, which reportedly had 1,939 views, 278 contributions and 210 contributors, according to a Power Point presentation from the city. Additional feedback was collected from focus groups, interviews and forums.

Most of the respondents were from Columbia’s Fourth Ward. In the survey, residents were asked to pick their five-biggest concerns in the city, with the top responses being homelessness, crime, housing, utility rates, taxes and traffic.

“These survey results just showed us again what we saw in our community survey last year. The priorities are for people to be safe, for us to have housing options and to continue to invest in the people that are responding to those needs,” Mayor Barbara Buffaloe said.

Additionally, the five most-important areas “you’d like to see more of in Columbia” included transportation issues, police visibility and public safety quality and economic opportunity. Roads and ease of driving and public transit options were included in transportation issues.

Safety concerns and transportation were listed as the top “barriers that may prevent members from fully engaging in life in Columbia.”

Affordability, homelessness, maintaining infrastructure and crime were described as the biggest challenges for the city for the next five years; though more than half of the responses were at least “somewhat confident” the city would be a better place to live in five years.

First Ward Councilwoman Valerie Carroll said the city will use the feedback to identify specific actions and measure its progress.

“These are the items that we can do. These are the things that we measure to report on our effectiveness. And here’s how we think we can achieve the goals that we’re aiming for,” Carroll said.

City employee results

Some overlap in concerns were seen from an employee survey described in the presentation, with homelessness and crime again being the leading concerns.

Employees voted both of those reasons as the top-two barriers preventing “community members from engaging in Columbia life.” Employees also predict homelessness, crime, affordability and maintaining infrastructure as the city’s biggest challenges during the next five years.

At least 66% of responding employees expected the city were at least “somewhat confident” the city would be a better place to live in five years. There were 254 employees who were surveyed.