When Chris Vega arrived in Omaha in mid-2025, he was unhoused, living on the street. Omaha was his latest stop on what seemed like a national tour of homeless shelters.

Vega, who is in his mid-30s, voluntarily decided to become unhoused after leaving his home in Orlando, Florida, almost a decade ago. His travels took him to several cities, including Augusta, Georgia, and San Francisco, where his lived on the streets for about three years.

Deciding Omaha would be his next stop, Vega lived on the streets near downtown for several weeks, before the stabbing of an unhoused man drove him to seek shelter. He stayed at the Siena Francis House for about five weeks, before enrolling at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and moving into campus housing.

While at UNO, Vega studies writing in hopes of becoming a screenwriter and producing his own projects.

Homeless shelters have changed over the years, from a place with a cot to Siena Francis House's campus environment near downtown Omaha.

That transition began with a visit between Sue Morris, who is the chair of the Omaha Philanthropic Trust, and a potential donor.

Morris said she thought she was doing her part to help the homeless situation in Omaha by volunteering to make meals once a month. Then, she got a real look into Omaha's unhoused issue.

Dozens of nonprofit agencies are dedicated to helping unhoused or shelter-challenged people. So, Lutheran Family Services sought to bring representatives under one roof to discuss ideas for serving Omaha's 1,600 unhoused people, hosting its first Human Care Symposium at the Scott Center at the University of Nebraska-Omaha last fall.

Morris was among the speakers at the daylong event, explaining how her organization became involved with Siena Francis House.

The shelter serves a multitude of roles in helping unhoused people, from overnight stays to long-term apartment housing. With facilities located on Nicholas Street between 16th and 18th Streets, Siena Francis House also provides food, clothing and emergency services.

Among its facilities, Siena Francis House offers on-site, permanent supportive housing for formerly unhoused, disabled people. It also has residential addiction rehabilitation services.

"We all have a shared interest in making our community stronger and helping people who don't have a voice in that process, and desperately need our help," Morris said.

Opened since 1975, Siena Francis House has grown into the largest shelter in Nebraska, thanks to a fundraising campaign that took off almost nine years ago.

During the symposium, Siena Francis House executive director Linda Twomey addressed the challenges the shelter faces in serving 550 people nightly. Siena Francis House helps about 3,000 people annually, she said.

"Our mission sounds simple," Twomey said. "It is to welcome individuals experiencing homelessness and to empower them on their path to housing. But we are actually serving some of the community's most vulnerable individuals, people with untreated mental illness, people who are addicted, people who are just chronically homeless and have no hope."

The capital campaign changed the landscape for Siena Francis House, Twomey said.

"When I arrived on Jan. 2, 2018, we moved people around all day long," she said. "We fed people breakfast, then we made them leave. If you're homeless, what do you do all day if you have to leave the one place where you get to lay your head and your belongings, and things like that?

"As a matter of fact, we didn't even have a place for people to put their belongings. We asked them to go outside. We opened a garage door every day, and we stuck their belongings in that garage door, and then we locked them up. And we didn't give them access to that until five o'clock at night. So we were literally kind of not serving people in a dignified way."

As Siena Francis House worked to improve the facilities and services, Twomey said leaders targeted three areas of concern: safety, dignity and durability.

"We serve people who have a past, people who aren't really bringing the best things to your doorstep every day, not through any fault of their own," she said. "Often, it's because of what's happened to them or how they grew up. Poverty, abuse, trauma. Those are the biggest risk factors for homelessness. So no one chooses to come to our door every day and to bring those things to us."

After improving safety conditions for residents, as well as staff, Siena Francis House officials focused on improving facilities, Twomey said.

"Two of six showers were being used," she said. "We were laying people on the floor, inches apart from the next person. Sleeping people in chairs. There was not a dignified approach to our services at that time, and we knew that needed to change."

With quality equipment and facilities in place, Siena Francis House staff members focused on serving the community, Twomey said.

"It's really important for the community to have a low-barrier shelter, where people can get into a bed when they need a bed without having to be screened," she said.

While Siena House staff seeks to provide quality services, they go a step further when it comes to a person's pet, Twomey said.

Last year, Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hansen sent a letter to county commissioners offering to help find foster care services for an unhoused person's pet. Once they established a home, they could get the animal back.

Siena Francis House already addresses that situation, even helping other shelters, Twomey said.

"We actually take dogs in our shelter," she said. "Dogs do have to have a city license, because that requires that they have vaccinations...if dogs come in and they don't have a city license, and their owner wants shelter, our case management staff works with that individual to help them to get the dog vaccinated and licensed. We have great partners at the Humane Society. There are some vets in the community who help."

Regardless of the reasons why a person may be unhoused, they deserve to be treated with respect, and Siena Francis House seeks to do just that, all with the idea of finding them a permanent home.