Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The emergency homeless shelter in Columbia has shut down.
Columbia City Councilman Cameron Runyan confirmed to News19 that the center, located off Huger Street, ceased offering services Monday.
The shelter opened last October, and was originally supposed to be in existence for just six months, but it was given an extension that allowed it to operate until July.
Offering meals and shelter, the center was helped in part by volunteer work from area churches, and was designed to assist people staying there to get jobs and a permanent home. Christ Central Ministries offered the people there transportation to get medical services and to go to places such as the library to look for work.
Runyan says that during the effort, though, the city identified that many other shelters in the community were at full capacity, and couldn't offer help to some of the people coming to them at the emergency site. The city also found that some of the people they were seeing were sex offenders or were mentally ill, and that there weren't adequate services set up anywhere in Columbia to offer help to those people.
Runyan said the city is still working on a long-term solution for the homeless.
