Socialism

Yoakum is a core member of CoMo Mobile Aid Collective (CoMAC) in Columbia, Missouri. Tonight, she’s working a “Winter Warriors” shift, which entails checking on people experiencing unsheltered homelessness and offering a warm drink, supplies, and a ride to a place they can get inside. Members of the aid collective go out as Winter Warriors each night the weather dips below 35 or 45 degrees, depending on precipitation.

By taking the needs of their unhoused neighbors into their hands, the CoMAC is now a major part of homelessness services in its city of about 130,000. Beginning in 2022, the collective transitioned into an official nonprofit organization serving hundreds each week with meal routes, twice-weekly nursing clinics, and supportive services. Still, the group operates with a mutual aid framework, anarchist principles, and consensus-based decision-making.

In the collective’s four years of existence, it has shown remarkable adaptability, as organizers have updated tactics to meet greater demands, build local coalitions, and face rising criminalization of poverty, along with right-wing harassment.