Columbia’s Room at the Inn shelter at capacity during heat wave

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Room at the Inn shelter has been consistently full with around 70 guests each night during this recent heat wave.

This is the first summer that Room at the Inn is open after receiving funding from the city in October to stay open year-round. The shelter had previously been open only during the winter.

Room at the Inn Executive Director John Trapp said summer capacity is 72. Before the heat wave, the shelter housed about 60 people each night, but Trapp said over the last week it has been consistently full each night, to the point of turning people away.

"You see people arrive suffering from heat exhaustion," Trapp said. "It really takes a lot out of folks to be out in the heat all day."

Trapp said people are coming into the shelter suffering from sunburns, heat exhaustion and dehydration.

He said the shelter is offering more water and sunscreen along with antihistamines, calamine lotion and steroidal creams to treat poison ivy, bug bites and allergies.

Temperatures have been at or above 90 degrees in Mid-Missouri for several days this June. The entire region is under a heat advisory Tuesday and the ABC 17 Stormtrack Weather Team has deemed it a Weather Alert Day because of extreme heat.

Heat indexes in the triple digits were forecast for a second straight day Tuesday.

Austin Krohn with Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services said it is dangerous for anyone to be outside for an extended amount of time during this heat.

"If you're, for lack of a better word, panhandling out in the sun all day, that can be dangerous because you have heat bouncing off the asphalt that's also hitting you, plus the sun coming down," Krohn said. "Just being outside for extended periods of time right now is just going to be dangerous if you're not taking the proper precautions."

Krohn said precautions can include staying hydrated, taking regular breaks and utilizing the area's cooling centers.

Room at the Inn, which is usually open from 6:30 p.m. to 8 a.m., even stayed open during the day on Saturday due to the high heat index and the fact the Turning Point Day Center is closed on Saturdays.

Trapp said it is difficult for Room at the Inn to stay open during the day because it requires overtime and increased resources, which the shelter doesn't have the funds to do consistently. But, he said they decided to stay open to give people a break from the heat.

"People with sunburns and then being out with the heat index over 100 degrees, that's a recipe for bad things to happen," Trapp said.

The Associated Press reports 2023 had a record amount of heat-related deaths, with around 2,300 deaths in the U.S. and 36 here in Missouri.

"Heat kills a lot more people than the cold does, so summer is really important to have a cool place," Trapp said.

Trapp said Room at the Inn is seeing an increase in elderly homelessness, as well, which is especially worrisome in the heat.

Along with an older homeless population, Trapp said he has also noticed an increased need.

Data this month from the Boone County Coalition to End Homelessness shows there were 367 unhoused people in Boone County as of June 18, which was up 28 people compared to May.

Trapp said he was expecting to see around 40 people each night at Room at the Inn during the summer and was shocked when numbers began consistently hitting the 60s and 70s.

"Two or three years ago, 70 would have been the number we had on the coldest night of the year," Trapp said. "Now, it's what we're consistently having every night."

Being open year round has also put more responsibility on the shelter, according to Trapp. He said they are working to offer more transitional resources, which have included hiring a case manager and working on treatment plants with people at the shelter.

"Those folks who work on their treatment plan get to exchange their cot for a bed and a locker, so we're trying to have incentives for people to work on solving their problems," Trapp said. "We can't solve their problems for them, but we can help them work on them."

Room at the Inn is located at 1509 Ashley Street in Columbia. Its summer hours are from 6:30 p.m. to 8 a.m.