Transitions, Rapid Shelter offer warm beds and meals to unhoused community

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — Columbia’s unhoused community remains at risk to current weather conditions — with bitter temperatures expected again on Tuesday night.

However, local shelters are providing much needed help.

“The folks who are unhoused in this cold weather, they need a place to stay. They need to get out of this cold. It can be lethal to them if they stay out. Some of these folks are not in great health, so when they spend the night on the sidewalk shivering. We want them to make it to the next morning,” says Craig Currey, CEO of Transitions Homeless Center located on Main Street in Downtown Columbia.

“I’ve been helping homeless people now for about 14 years. It’s an important mission,” he says.

Transitions provides shelter to the homeless, with 260 overnight beds (now at capacity), and daily meals for breakfast lunch and dinner.

“We need to keep people warm, and give them hot chow, and it works out. We wanna get them into services as well and get them off the street,” he says.

The facility and its 50 partners provide further hope for the temporary residents by providing them with an on-site doctor, help to overcome addiction and mental health issues, literacy classes, a career center, and help finding a permanent home.

“That is the goal — is to get people housed so they don’t keep playing this game of under a bridge, over at a shelter, in the park, in a parking garage. We want people housed,” he says.

With Transitions’ beds currently full, Currey says folks are allowed to come during the day from 8:30 am to 5 p.m. for warm meals and access to indoor areas.

Between 5:45 p.m. and 7 p.m., Currey says the Comet Transit System (at the corners of Sumter and Laurel Streets) is available to bus people to Rapid Shelter — a homeless center located just off of Huger Street on Calhoun Street.

There, they’ll be able to utilize the overflow space for a warm place to sleep.

“We’re working with the city, if they reach capacity at the overflow, then we’ll take some of the overflow from the overflow,” says Currey.

Rapid Shelter has helped over 100 people find a permanent home since it opened in 2022, and Transitions has helped over 4,000 people find a permanent home since it opened in 2011.