Callaway County's emergency homeless shelter saw record numbers of visitors this past summer.
Wiley House, the emergency overnight shelter of Our House: Caring for Callaway's Homeless, saw 329 bednights - one person who stayed overnight at the shelter - in July and 343 bednights in August. That averages to 11 people per night, a "significant" increase from eight people per night last year according to a press release.
Our House Director Brad Sheppard said that Wiley House's annual number of bednights has increased each year since opening in 2009, and this year's numbers maintain a steady pace.
"I've charted some of our data for each year since Wiley has been open, and the first few years we could be real sporadic, like a lot one month, less the next," Sheppard said. "We're just having a more consistent number of people there. We used to sometimes have three or five per night and that's pretty rare anymore."