Temperatures are expected to dip below zero Wednesday night in Lincoln. The bitter cold is having a big impact on operations at the People’s City Mission homeless shelter. Pastor Tom Barber is the CEO and tells KLIN News they are scrambling to find room for more than 400 men, women and children in their family shelter, which has a capacity of 250.
“We’ve not only got people in our lobbies, we’ve literally had to put people in the hallways. We’ve never had to do that before,” Barber says. “We hope to open our little church building in the back.”
Barber says that building is not set up for people to live in, but they are hoping to set up 20 cots to keep people off the floor. “We just don’t want to turn anybody out in the cold, but we’re out of room and we’re just not sure what to do.”
Barber tells KLIN News is the numbers continue to grow they may have to find a church gymnasium to use from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. He also says they have had to hire more on-call employees to try and make it work.
Barber says in addition to the cold weather, homelessness has continued to grow during his two decades as the CEO. “We’re just experiencing what everyone else is across the country. I know across the country it’s up 15 to 20 percent and I don’t think Lincoln is immune to the homeless issues that are happening across the United States.”