Community Missions cold weather shelter open 24 hours until Thursday

A local homeless shelter in St. Joseph is extending the hours of its cold weather facility as dangerously cold temperatures move through the area.

Community Missions at 700 Olive St. is keeping its cold weather shelter open 24 hours through Thursday to keep its visitors safe from the inclement weather.

“It's just not a safe environment for individuals to be in,” Community Missions Executive Director Rachael Bittiker said. “So once it gets extremely cold and then precipitation, then we activate it to where we can do 24 hours.”

The cold weather shelter is typically open from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. and only has enough funding to operate for 50 days out of the year.

“Our whole mission is to make sure that people are safe,” Bittiker said. “That’s what we want.”

Cold weather shelter visitor Timothy Thomason is grateful for the cold weather shelter after experiencing frostbite last winter. Over 130 people have visited the shelter so far this year.

“It helps a lot of us that are in my situation or like my situation to come in, get a warm bed, get warm,” Thomason said. “They do feed us and stuff, so that’s very important.”

Last year, Community Missions received $50,000 from the City of St. Joseph for its cold weather shelter operations, but it spent $62,000 to keep it running in 2024.

“We went over $12,000 because you never know how long you're going to have to stay open 24 hours due to weather, so it’s always hit or miss,” Bittiker said. “So $12,000 of that is pulled out of a budget that we have for accidents and things that we need to do.”

Thomason called the shelter a blessing and thanked the staff who operate the facility. As News-Press NOW previously reported, Community Missions leadership is working to keep the cold weather shelter open every day.

“We all have our moments and stuff, but they deal with us, and they do a good job,” he said. “All I can say is thank you. My hat’s off to them.”