When Nights Stay Brutally Hot, New Day Opens Extra Beds Downtown

If a summer night in the coverage area is forecast to stay dangerously warm, there’s now a second door people can knock on in Columbia. Voluntary Action Center‘s New Day program (formerly Turning Point) has been opening as an overnight overflow cooling shelter to back up Waypoint, the Opportunity Campus’s regular overnight shelter that operates in any weather.

Who it’s for: anyone 18 and older, no appointment or referral needed — it’s walk-in, 24/7.

Where: the Opportunity Campus at 1300 Bowling St., near Business Loop 70 in Columbia.

When it opens: New Day activates as overflow specifically on nights when the overnight low isn’t expected to drop below 75 degrees — the threshold the city uses to authorize it. This past week’s opening was the second time it’s activated this summer, after an earlier stretch on July 2. Waypoint normally has more than 100 beds; New Day has added 20 cots on top of that for nights when the heat makes sleeping outside dangerous.

It’s a small, practical piece of infrastructure worth knowing about before the next heat wave rolls through — for yourself, or for pointing someone else toward it.