Columbia police encounters with homeless population increase in 2024

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia's police officers are having more frequent encounters with homeless people -- so many that the Columbia Police Department has a team dedicated to dealing with that part of the population.

The number of calls for service and arrests involving homeless people jumped 38% in Columbia from 2023 to 2024, according to city data. Officers were sent to nearly 3,000 calls involving homeless people last year and made 277 arrests. The top incidents were check subject (23%), trespassing (19.2%) and disturbance (11.3%).

In 2023, most of these calls were based downtown and off Highway 63 and Broadway. In 2024, these calls expanded into north Columbia, at the Highway 63/Interstate 70 connector and downtown.

CPD has two officers who work exclusively with homeless people and their issues, which can vary from those of the general population. They're called the Homeless Outreach Team.

"We concentrate our efforts on the homeless population in Columbia," Officer Brad Anderson said. "And that's not the downtown area, which we used to do, but we have the whole city now."

Officer Todd Rowland rounds out the team, which Anderson says is going on its second year.

Anderson said the team's job goes beyond law enforcement. They also help homeless people get access to services through a program called DIVERT.

According to the City of Columbia, the DIVERT Program "provides a compassionate approach to justice" by combining social services into the public safety and justice systems. The city says the ultimate goal is to reduce the workload on public safety departments and courts.

"If somebody is willing to try to help themselves off the streets, we can point them in the right direction and get them in touch with all these different services," Anderson said. "We enter all their information [into an app], what kind of services they want to include, mental health, housing food, you know, basic needs."

The homeless outreach unit says trespassing is the most common call they respond to.

"Trespassing leads into the homeless camps," Anderson said. "That's where we are concentrating most of our efforts now."

Public alarm

City residents have noticed the camps and other signs of the homeless population in Columbia, according to multiple comments in a city survey. One resident wrote, "Do something about the homeless! They have turned our City into a dump! They are destroying private and public property, making our parks unavailable by using their drugs and leaving the evidence behind."

About half of the open-ended comments left by residents in the 2024 City of Columbia Community Survey Findings Report mention the phrases "homelessness," "unhoused" or "panhandling" when outlining concerns.

The survey findings were presented to the city council in December. It was the first survey the city had conducted since 2019.

According to the city, the survey was mailed out to a random sample of households. The results show that 855 households took part in the survey, which included multiple-choice ranking questions and an open-comment section.

The questions asked citizens about their satisfaction on many topics including city services, quality of life, transportation, parks and recreation and public safety.

Just under 32% of households said they felt "very safe" or "safe" while walking downtown. Many of the open-ended answers mentioned feeling unsafe downtown because of the homeless population.

One resident wrote, "Clean up the streets, parks and the downtown area of the homeless!! It is unsafe and unwelcoming."

"Enforcement of laws equally on the unhoused/unhomed," another commenter wrote. "The dangerous ones continue to be released and can harm others, themselves and our children. I won't take my children downtown for events or anything anymore because of the homeless issue. I can't tell you how many needles I'VE had to pick up in a public area my child play in or worrying about their safety downtown."

The city created a report about ongoing efforts and recommendations in response to those concerns. The three key themes taken away from the survey were focused on homelessness, public safety and crime prevention, and litter and code enforcement.

Ongoing efforts outlined by the city

• Conducted housing study
• Developed the DIVERT Program
• Created the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT)
• Expanded hours at Room at the Inn
• Boone County Coalition to End Homelessness

Recommendations from staff

• Host community meetings and focus groups on homelessness
• Add public restrooms for those who do not have access to such facilities
• Augment existing staff to support the homeless
• Outreach team efforts
• Expand the DIVERT program
• Create a Homelessness Advisory Board
• Incentivize housing options with landlords
• Implement a “ride home” program for individuals to their initial area of support

"I do think because Columbia has grown so quickly over the last few years, especially, this has become a prominent issue," city spokesperson Sydney Olsen said. "I think the survey really gave us a better look at how important this issue is to our community."

Olsen said the city is looking at multiple programs it already has in place in a few areas. One of these includes possibly expanding the Homeless Outreach Team.

Olsen said the city thinks it can better support people and connect them to resources by expanding the team.

Familiar faces

The members of the Homeless Outreach Team say they continue to see the same faces who do not want help.

"There's a very high percentage of them that don't want it," Rowland said.

Anderson said he's been with the department for 23 years and continues to see some of the same people as when he first started.

"Some of them are very upfront and say, 'This is my lifestyle now,' 'I like my freedom,' and things of that nature. But like Todd said, we're running into where they're not wanting the services anymore. It's a vicious cycle," Anderson said.

According to the Boone County Coalition to End Homelessness, as of January, there were 318 people experiencing homelessness in the county.

Columbia resident JoAnn Williams, 60, said she's been married for 28 years. She and her husband are both on disability and she's been homeless for the past few years.

"I've been really trying to get into a home," Williams said. "I don't wish this on nobody around here."

Williams said she has a past with the law and drugs but says she has turned her life around. She said one of the biggest challenges when trying to find a home is the stigma around the word homeless.

"When they [people] hear homelessness, they think that you're a drug user, a liar, but not everyone's like that," Williams said.

She said the recent cold has been hard on her, but she has taken advantage of city resources available like shelters Room at the Inn and Turning Point. She says she sees police try to help.

"I think we're a good liaison for them," Rowland said. "We're going to bridge the gap to services. We can't arrest our way out of the problem, we understand that and there's certain things that we can offer that a normal patrol officer is not going to have time to do."

Williams said she has seen the homeless population increase tremendously. Police agree.

"We're running into the same people now, three, four or five times," Anderson said. "It's really hard and frustrating for us when you're trying to help somebody who doesn't want help themselves. They're still human beings and we're trying to be empathetic and sympathetic at the same time but we still have a law enforcement role."

A magnet city

Anderson said a lot of the people they run into on the street are not from Boone County.

"We're finding a lot of them are coming from outside of the Columbia area," Anderson said. "I mean we've found them as far as Georgia. We found some from Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis."

Rowland said he thinks the resources available to the homeless population in Columbia is one of the biggest factors for people coming in from out of town.

"They're hearing that Columbia is rich with services for the homeless population, which I think we do have a lot of services, but we have no housing," Rowland said.

The City of Columbia says housing is a major problem that city government is trying to address.

Olsen said the city is aware of the influx of individuals from outside Columbia.

"We do know that has been a trend because Columbia is rich with resources," Olsen said. "We do have some municipalities or agencies who bring people here to get services of many different kinds but they don't always get them back home. So as part of the survey discussion we've actually talked about implementing a program to take people back to where they came from, if they so choose."

The Homeless Outreach Team says one of its biggest challenges is staffing -- only two people are on the team.

As of Jan. 24, CPD says it has 25 job openings in the department.

"We can certainly try to help people, but as far as solving the issue of homelessness, that goes way beyond the police department," Rowland said.