A growing number of teens are aging out of foster care. This Omaha coffee shop offers a lifeline

Astute Coffee bustles with activity most weekday mornings.

Omaha Central students pop in for a caffeine hit before school, briefcase-toting office workers swing by on their way to morning meetings, and a handful of sleepy travelers wander over from a nearby hotel.

The downtown shop’s many windows let the morning light shine in as patrons sit and chat or clack away on laptops. It’s a typical Omaha coffee shop, but, for many, it’s also a lifeline.

The business bridges the perilous rift that exists between leaving Nebraska’s foster care system and entering adulthood – a journey with little guidance and few safety nets.

Astute Coffee has for more than a decade served as a nonprofit workforce development program for young adults aging out of the foster care system. The learning opportunities and resources offered by the shop are more important than ever as an increasing number of teens age out of Nebraska’s foster care system.

An annual report from the Nebraska Foster Care Review Office found the percentage of children aging out of foster care has nearly doubled in the past 10 years. In 2015, only 5% aged out, but in 2025, that number rose to 9.3%.

Astute began in 2015 as Omaha’s Bike Union and Coffee, a place that sold bikes and fresh cups of coffee out of a unique circular building at 19th and Dodge streets. Founder Miah Sommer changed gears during the pandemic. He did away with the bikes to focus more on his original mission: workforce development for Nebraskans aging out of the foster care system.

“It's just amazing what people can do if you just give them the space to do it,” Sommer said.

His program takes in 10 to 15 young adults per year. Sommer’s ultimate goal is to create a safe space. A consistent location for learning, guidance and support.

Sometimes, those young adults stick around.

“Working here, the nice part is you’re around others with similar lived experiences,” said Tommie De Leon as she made her way to an office in the building’s basement. The 23-year-old is Astute’s community outreach coordinator.

De Leon joined the program nearly six years ago, when she was 18. She was 7 years old when she first entered the foster care system. At the time, she and her four siblings were living in a home without running water or electricity. De Leon would later learn it was her older sister who had made a call to officials.

The removal happened at night, with multiple police officers and an abrupt exit from the life De Leon knew. The siblings were able to stay together and eventually were reunited with their parents.

“My parents were actively using meth, so we were kind of in that process, hoping they would sober up,” De Leon said. “We thought there'd be an expectation that they wouldn't be able to get us back until they were sober. It turned out to not be the case.”

When De Leon was 14, her mother was arrested and her father moved to Texas. She entered the system again, this time as a teenager under the care of her older sister.

During her senior year of high school, De Leon received an email with job listings. The Bike Union, now Astute, was on the list. The option was especially appealing to De Leon because of the ability to participate in the nonprofit’s programming while on the clock.

“I got here, and it was just family,” De Leon said. “When you get around people that you almost don't have to explain where you're coming from. You can joke about it, you can laugh about it a bit and put some humor around it to make it a little bit lighter to carry.”

As of early 2026, around 4,000 children or teens were in Nebraska’s foster care system. Neglect is the most common reason children in the child welfare system enter out-of-home care. In Nebraska, substance abuse is a major contributing factor, said Monika Gross, executive director of the Nebraska Foster Care Review Office.

The office also found that nearly a quarter of young people who age out experience homelessness within four years. They are also at a higher risk of mental health challenges and employment instability.

“Many times, their parents rights have been terminated, and so they don't have the legal connection to their parents anymore and oftentimes have lost contact with extended family, sometimes even with their siblings,” Gross said. “In many cases, they’re on their own.”

After several years in the system, De Leon became the first person in her family to graduate high school, and the first to pursue higher education. She graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a degree in Black studies and communication and a minor in Chicano studies.

About two years ago she married her husband, whom she met on a study abroad trip in Morocco. Soon, she hopes to attend law school. Despite difficult odds, De Leon has built a life as a successful young adult. The steps she took to get there are her own, but Astute helped guide the way.

De Leon encourages Nebraskans to look into fostering.

“Fostering is a long journey and a hard challenge for a lot of parents,” De Leon said, “and I think that when you're able to take a teenager into your home, there's just so much love and empathy that needs to be there.”

Not everyone’s experience with Astute ends like De Leon’s, Sommer said. That’s not the point, he said. The point is to keep showing up.

“They don’t have to do really great with the program,” Sommer said. “I just think they need to be valued and told that they bring value, and told that even if they might not get their goal this year or next year, that they're eventually going to get there. I think their experience is not because they're broken. It's just something that happened to them and not who they are.”