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Service organizations for people experiencing homelessness report rising demand for meals and shelter across Nebraska, putting a strain on their services and limiting outreach.
In Lincoln, point-in-time counts of people struggling with homelessness show that while the number of unsheltered people declined slightly between 2023 and 2025, the number of people in emergency and transitional housing situations rose significantly.
In Lincoln, Matt Talbot Kitchen & Outreach reported serving more than 263,000 meals in 2025, an increase of nearly 13% year over year. The organization said pantry visits more than doubled from January 2025 to January 2026, while onsite meals rose by 25%.
The nonprofit now averages 283 meals per day and is seeking additional volunteers to help meet the growing demand for its services.
“Volunteers are at the heart of everything we do,” Executive Director Alynn Sampson said in a statement. “As more neighbors turn to us for support, we rely on the generosity of volunteer teams to ensure everyone who walks through our doors is met with dignity, compassion and a warm meal.”
A news release from the organization highlighted three ways volunteer teams can support its hunger relief efforts.
Under the “provide, prepare and serve” option, teams purchase ingredients, prepare the meal and serve it on site. The model helps reduce food costs, allowing more funding to go toward housing and case management services.
Volunteers may also choose a “pay and serve” option by making a $300 donation to cover food expenses. In that case, staff prepare the meal while volunteers assist with serving.
A third option allows teams to provide side dishes while Matt Talbot staff prepare the main entrée.
In Omaha, Elizabeth Robbins, the Stephen Center’s chief experience officer, said the organization is experiencing struggles that are not from a lack of volunteers but from facilities operating at full capacity across its emergency shelter, permanent supportive housing and substance abuse programs.
“We are always at capacity in all three of our programs,” Robbins said. “I know that for the year of 2025, we had to say no around 5,200 times for people seeking shelter services that would have otherwise been able to come in.”
The emergency shelter, which currently has space for 32 men, 32 women and four families, faces the greatest strain, Robbins said. During extreme cold, staff add overflow cots to provide additional bed capacity.
Point-in-time counts show a steady rise in people experiencing homelessness in the Omaha area since 2020.
Robbins said she believes the end of COVID-era funding is contributing to the rising demand for its services.
“I feel like it's a combination of things.... We had a ton of COVID funding to keep people in their homes, so I feel like this is an aftereffect of COVID,” she said. “Individuals are now losing placement due to having funds to keep them secured; when those funds are gone, there’s no other resource.”
Robbins also emphasized the need for affordable and low-income housing units within the city and across the state.
“We need so many more affordable housing units, not just affordable, but low-income housing units. We serve a ton of people on a fixed income, and it's just difficult for them to find placement when their income is fixed,” she said. “There's no housing here in our community that can be moved into on the amount of money that these people are getting for their Social Security Disability Insurance.”
The Stephen Center plans to add additional capacity to its campus in the next few years. Robbins said groundbreaking for its grant-funded project will be this summer. The build will double its capacity for men and women and triple the facility’s capacity for families.
“We are just currently trying to navigate how to help folks, identify where to go when we are at capacity and then get them connected to street outreach in Omaha,” Robbins said.
In North Platte, Ashley Lewis, executive director of The Connection, said rural communities are experiencing similar pressures.
The Connection operates emergency shelter and supportive services for single men, women and families with children. The nonprofit also runs a thrift store that provides clothing, vouchers and low-cost retail options to residents.
Lewis said the shelter has remained near capacity for an extended period, though recent weeks have seen success in placing residents into affordable or low-income housing.
“We have been really, really full for quite a while,” she said. “And now in the recent weeks, we've had some really good luck getting people in the housing, which is obviously beneficial.”
The organization also provides three daily meals to residents and serves meals to members of the broader community who aren’t part of their housing program.
As with providers in Lincoln and Omaha, Lewis pointed to the limited availability of affordable housing as a central challenge for her organization.
“We have been struggling for a very long time, just not being able to find affordable housing,” she said. “There is a very high need for those units.”
In the past decade, the city of North Platte has made housing availability and affordability a priority. Its “Shot in the Arm” program has contributed to the construction of hundreds of units within the city.
In 2023, The Connection secured low-income housing tax credits for a planned 44-unit supportive housing complex in North Platte. The Thriving Connections Apartments’ had a groundbreaking last fall, and the units expected to be completed this spring.