Columbia veteran says new shelter is needed

Thursday at 10 a.m., Welcome Home will host the grand opening of its new $3.2 million shelter to help veterans in mid-Missouri.

The new building will increase the shelter’s capacity to 34 beds. It will allow Welcome Home to shelter female veterans and families with children, something the nonprofit hasn’t been able to do.

At its current location, Welcome Home can only provide 11 male veterans with a place to sleep, in extreme cases the shelter uses two couches as beds.

ABC 17 News spoke with a former Welcome Home resident who told us how much the nonprofit changed his life.

“Welcome Home has helped me so much the past year, I don’t know where I’d be without them, I really don’t,” said Brian McNeil, who lived there for eight to nine months.

McNeil told ABC 17 News he heard about Welcome Home in a town nearly two hours south of Columbia.

“As soon as they answered the phone, I felt and knew someone cared,” McNeil said.

That care helped McNeil get the medical aid needed for PTSD, along with surgery. McNeil stayed at Welcome Home for about nine months before moving out to a place with the Columbia Housing Authority.

Staff at Welcome Home say they expect the new facility to be at full capacity when they open, around late August or early September.