Local cold weather shelter provides a lifeline for its visitors

By Chris Fortune

Shelter is a basic human necessity that has become amplified as freezing air billows in northwest Missouri, but a local cold weather shelter is going a step further to provide care and resources for its visitors.

Community Missions Corporation opened its cold weather shelter at 700 Olive St. on Monday evening in anticipation of the frigid temperatures. The shelter opens once temperatures reach below 20 degrees for a consecutive number of days.

Shelter Assistant Tawny Case said the drop in temperatures came quickly, so spreading the word to anyone who needed the shelter’s facilities was urgent.

“The biggest thing is getting the word to the people, because not everybody has their phones or internet access,” she said. “So it’s getting them aware of we’re here and then getting those resources sent out to them.”

The cold weather shelter is open seven days a week from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. It provides a bed, shower and dinner for its visitors.

“It is almost a necessity to open since we are in the Midwest and the weather is really cold to have somewhere to go,” she said. “And it’s anybody, men and women over the age of 18, and we accept everybody. It doesn’t matter what you are, as long as you don’t have a place to go, then we can be your place.”

Around 18 men and seven women have been visiting the cold weather shelter on average since it opened. The men’s side can take in 20 visitors, and the women’s side can handle 10, but cots are available if they run out of bedspace.

Visitors like Christa Noland are grateful because other cold weather shelters she visited in the past couldn’t accommodate all the women who needed it.

“It’s very nice to have just a woman’s shelter because our options are limited as a girl in this city,” Noland said.

This is the first year Community Missions could provide a cold weather shelter for men and women. Around $175,000 in funding from Buchanan County paid for Community Missions to build a facility specifically to house women.

“It gives us a chance as a girl to share stories of and comfort each other, you know, that are in the same position, and it draws you a little closer as a friend,” she said.

The goodwill and support from workers at the shelter don’t go unnoticed by visitors.

“It’s very nice to have people like Tawny — that’s like a stepniece to me,” she said. “And the rest of their staff prepare these meals, and it also helps us save if we do have a little bit of income.”

Case said it takes someone with a big heart to take care of the homeless population. Seeing visitors warm, happy and full of food provides all the inspiration she needs to do her job.

“They’re not all bad people — they’re not, they were in a bad place — wrong place at the wrong time kind of thing,” she said. “They could be getting over abuse problems, drug abuse, whatever it may be. So they need a lot of compassion and understanding.”

Noland said the homeless population looks for stability and permanent shelter, and she would like others to understand that they are not dangerous.

“We’d like for them to accept us like we do the general population or the upper population — upper class,” she said. “We’re just as good, and we’re just — some of us are less fortunate or our families have passed away, where we don’t have a lot of resources anymore.”