Month: December 2025

Olivia Hayes

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Mid-Missouri homeless organizations are preparing to see an increased need as extreme low temperatures are expected over the weekend.

Maj. Nancy Powers, a Corps Officer with Columbia’s Salvation Army Harbor House, said Friday that the colder weather has already brought people to Harbor House with dangerous weather-related health problems.

“By the time they’re coming to us, they may have black fingertips or black toes,” Powers said. “Oftentimes their skin is red and cracking, that kind of thing.”

Harbor houses typically focus on families facing homelessness, but they will work with other local organizations, like Room at the Inn, on a referral basis to help with any overflow.

“We have cots so we can accommodate what we need to on cots,” Powers said. “We do screen everybody to make sure we don’t have any sexual predators, or anybody that would be dangerous with our kids.”

Powers said Harbor House’s non-resident day shelter opens at 6 a.m. and closes around the time other overnight shelters and organizations in town open up.

“They need to leave here by four o’clock to catch the bus to go there,” Powers said. “We encourage folks, get that bus so you have some place to go.”

However, families and Harbor House residents are able to stay 24 hours. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served daily for residents, but lunch is open to members of the public.

“It’s really good that they’re here and they offer the services that they do,” said Melanie Mooney, a Harbor House resident.

Powers said the shelter needs more winter gear and clothing for its residents and community members in need.

“Boots, hats, gloves, scarves,” Powers said. “Adult coats, especially large sizes of adult coats, are really important.” 

John Trapp, with Columbia’s Room at the Inn, said 110 beds are available for people looking to get out of the cold overnight. Trapp also said Turning Point, located at Columbia’s United Methodist Church on Wilkes Boulevard, will be open overnight as a warming center to assist with any overflow.

Audrain County is expected to be one of the hardest hit areas by the extreme low temperatures. Ra’Vae Edwards-Moore, executive director for Audrain County’s Room at the Inn, said it will be open 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday with capacity for 16 people overnight.

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Alison Patton

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The state is working with stakeholders to figure out how to implement restrictions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Missouri Department of Social Services said Friday.

The state was approved to adjust the SNAP program to exclude items like sodas, candy, packaged and prepared desserts and juice with less than 50% of vegetable or fruit juice.

Kim Buckman from Feeding Missouri said the organization hopes to be included in conversations with the state as it navigates how and what to restrict.

“We hope to work closely with the state, retailers, and partners to ensure efforts to support healthier outcomes are implemented in ways that protect access to food and strengthen the systems that communities of every size depend on,” Buckman wrote in an email.

She also emphasised the need for clarity with the new restrictions.

“Changes need to be clear, consistent, and practical so they don’t unintentionally reduce access to food or place added strain on local retailers — risking their ability to continue serving their communities,” Buckman said.

The earliest start date for the prohibition is Oct. 1, 2026.

California resident and SNAP recipient Regina Anderson said her five-year-old daughter could have a hard time switching juices.

“It’s not fair if you think about it because most juices are less than 50% juice,” Anderson said. “Unless you’re getting 100% apple juice or 100% orange juice. Not every kid likes apple juice or orange juice. My daughter like drinking the little Kool-Aid juices.”

Anderson also said she uses her SNAP dollars to bring cupcakes or ice cream into her daughter’s class when it’s her birthday to celebrate. She won’t be able to do that under the new restrictions.

Bryan Wolford, another California resident, said he was on a USDA commodities program as a child.

He said that while he sees the importance of the SNAP program, he thinks the program should have limits.

“Taxpayers, which I am and have been since I was 15, we should not be paying for these high sugar, high fat foods that are essentially poisoning our families and our Missouri kids,” Wolford said.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The judge in a lawsuit surrounding Missouri’s new redistricting proposal has opted to not rule on the case until collected signatures are verified.

Cole County Judge Christopher Limbaugh wrote in a Friday decision that People Not Politicians had submitted more than 300,000 signatures to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to certify in their effort to get the new congressional map on the state ballot.

“Currently, to the court’s knowledge, no signatures have been officially accepted or rejected. Conceivably, this could be enough signatures to place the referendum on the ballot thereby mooting the issues presented in the case at bar,” Limbaugh wrote.

“Therefore, the court will hold this case in abeyance until the requisite number of signatures have been certified or up until enough signatures have been rejected so as to prevent plaintiffs’ referendum from appearing on the ballot. It is further ordered that Secretary Hoskins preserve all signatures filed with his office, whether those signatures are accepted or rejected, until further order by this court.

People Not Politicians issued a statement showing support for the judge’s decision.

“Judge Limbaugh recognized that the key issue right now is whether the submitted signatures are certified. No signatures have been accepted or rejected yet, and the court ordered that they all be preserved. We agree with the judge — let’s check the signatures,” People Not Politicians spokesperson Elsa Rainey told ABC 17 News in a statement.  

Hanaway on Friday also filed a motion in federal court to sanction People Not Politicians’ lawyers. Hanaway’s motion argues that the counsel should be sanctioned for suggesting to media outlets that the map should be frozen.

Arguments in the trial earlier this week included PNP claiming Hoskins failed to follow Missouri open records laws by not approving the referendum language. The state argued because the governor hadn’t signed the new congressional map into law during the initial submission of the language, he couldn’t approve it.

Hoskins and Attorney General Catherine Hanaway claimed on Thursday that the new map is cemented in state law.

A federal judge earlier this week dismissed a lawsuit filed by the state that sought to block the new map from appearing on the ballot.

Republican lawmakers had suggested redrawing lines sooner than the state’s typical period of every 10 years after it was requested by President Donald Trump ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Critics of the map have called it gerrymandering and if it is passed, it is expected to give Republicans an additional lawmaker to represent the state. The area at the center of the discussion is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver.

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