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RELEASED: SUMMER 2026
COMO Mobile Aid Collective Releases Study Tracking a Drastic Surge in Regional Homelessness and Urgent Service Gaps
COLUMBIA, MO - COMO Mobile Aid Collective, in partnership with the University of Missouri School of Public Health researcher Michelle Teti, and student researchers Lena Kolostov and Katie Harmon, have released a new report that sheds light on the escalating crisis of homelessness and service accessibility in Columbia.
Over a six-month study period, researchers and outreach advocates conducted more than 130 surveys with individuals experiencing homelessness at different service sites in the city. The findings help inform the limited information presently available on this population. They outline the immense survival challenges unhoused community members face regarding housing security, healthcare, nutrition, and sleep.
A Visible Escalation in Need
On the front lines, COMO Mobile Aid continues to witness numbers rising drastically across all of our mobile services. The data gathered helps explain exactly who is being impacted by this surging global, national, regional, and local crisis. The expanding demographic primarily includes:
● First-Time Homelessness: A staggering 59% of respondents reported that this is the very first time they have ever experienced homelessness, indicating a sharp and severe upward shift in recent years.
● Aging Populations and Youth: The growing numbers notably consist of vulnerable folks over the age of 50 dealing with severe physical illness or injuries and mental health challenges, alongside youth under the age of 25.
● The Rural-to-Urban Pipeline: Much of this expanding population migrates from under-resourced, smaller in-state towns to Columbia in search of critical infrastructure that simply does not exist in their rural home communities.
Key Discoveries Across Core Services
The study quantified exactly how current community infrastructure is failing to meet the basic benchmarks of human survival:
● Housing Status & Root Causes: Sixty percent (60%) of those surveyed live in local shelters or hotels, while 20% live outside on the streets, and 17.47% sleep in tents or couch-surf. Work and income complications remain the primary driver, with 38.1% citing employment or income-related issues as the root cause of their housing instability.
● Severe Nutritional Deficits: Food insecurity in Columbia is rampant. Nearly half of the participants (47%) reported having no consistent and easy access to food, with many noting they had not eaten a truly filling meal in weeks or months. Additionally, 30% report feeling hungry most or all of the time, and 37% survive on less than two meals a day. Only half of those eligible are successfully accessing SNAP benefits.
● The Sleep Deprivation Crisis: Respondents are getting an average of just 5.69 hours of sleep per night, plagued by an average of 2.6 to 2.9 disruptions. Sleep environments are heavily impacted by environmental stressors: 25% reported their sleeping conditions are too noisy, 25% must sleep somewhere completely different every single night, and 14.2% struggle constantly against freezing weather conditions. Only 47% feel safe when sleeping.
● Systemic Healthcare Barriers: While 79% of participants possess some form of medical insurance, structural gaps prevent proper care. For instance, 42% of those prescribed vital medications say they are not taking them due to being uneducated on their prescriptions, and another 42% say they do not have a primary care physician. Mental health remains the single most dominant health concern cited by 31.2% of respondents, with 34% rating their overall mental and emotional health as "poor".
A Call to Action from COMO Mobile Aid Collective
The data gathered in this study underscores what we experience on the ground every day: the system is stretched past its breaking point. We are seeing an unprecedented wave of folks experiencing homelessness for the very first time, many arriving from smaller Missouri towns with nothing left. Existing services must evolve to address these severe gaps in nutrition, basic healthcare literacy, and safe shelter. Behind every percentage point in this report is a human being enduring profound survival trauma in our community.
COMO Mobile Aid will utilize this data to strategically reshape its outreach pathways, scale up resource distribution as able, and advocate for systemic city-, state-, and nation-wide policy changes.
The complete series of reporting modules detailing Healthcare, Nutrition, Sleep, and Housing metrics is available upon request.
–Steph Yoakum, Operations Manager
About COMO Mobile Aid Collective: COMO Mobile Aid provides direct, low-barrier, front-line mobile aid and advocacy to unhoused individuals in Columbia, Missouri, delivering essential survival gear, medical services, nutrition, and human connection directly to those who need it most.
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