Community Action Agency Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders assistance programs.
Numerous resources are offered from the Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties. Clients can often get help for their basic needs first. This will then be combined with case management services, including job training and referrals.
Some examples of what may be available includes providing free nutritious meals, food and shelter, including rental and security deposit assistance. Utility bill help may be coordinated too, and these are often some of most basic needs met. Community Action of Lancaster Nebraska assists with these requests by, among other things, providing hot meals and lunches at its soup kitchen (the Gathering Place), and they also offer one time emergency rent and utility grants for those who may have an eviction or disconnect notice.
Rental, financial and utility bills assistance from community action
Most of the financial aid is part of the Emergency Services Program. This offers cash assistance and other aid with back rent and utility bills, including electric, water, and propane. There are also funds for security deposits, and this is are available for those who may be homeless.
The non-profit understands that not being able to pay rent, heating or utility bills are one of the primary reasons of homelessness within Lancaster County and across Nebraska. With this financial assistance, Community Action is helping households from becoming homeless or evicted. Through case management, they will also help participants remain living in stable housing.
Thanks to donations from various community funders and government allotments, the agency will also provide grants to assist with the cost of propane or heating oil delivery for rural residents of Lancaster County. If the community action agency can’t help, there are also referrals to other state and federal programs. Get utility bill help in Nebraska.
Community Action’s offers housing assistance too. This will include help for rent, the Homeless Voucher Program, and funds to pay security deposits. The non-profit works in partnership with groups such as the Lincoln Nebraska Housing Authority to secure low income housing for homeless persons.
In addition, through case management, applicants are taught how maintain a monthly budget and to develop goals with the assistance of their Family Advocate. The purpose of case management is to provide in-home support that will help clients with meeting their long-term goals. This touches upon credit repair, budgeting, and other practices vital to increasing the chances of remaining sheltered while preparing them for permanent housing.
The Community Action Agency focuses on homeless prevention too. A combination of ESG funds, grant money from the United Way, as well as other resources are offered. These services can help both tenants as well as homeowners in Lancaster and Saunders Counties, and even the homeless as part of rehousing. More on homeless prevention and rapid rehousing in Nebraska.
A wide range of Tenant Mediation and Support Services work to prevent evictions. It offers the clients landlord and the tenant mediation. In addition to that, the staff can present clients with information regarding their rights and obligations as a tenant.
The non-profit Community Action also offers a Supportive Housing Program. This serves as a type of short term transitional housing service that provides intensive support to clients. This will include in-home and group-based case management to applicants.
It is also for those that are homeless, pregnant, and meet low income levels in Lancaster County. All applicants of the Supportive Housing Program from the community action partnership must be willing to cooperate with intensive case management so that they can become self-sufficient, pay the rent on their own in the future and remain living in stable housing.
Affordable Housing is provided in the area. Many evicted and very low income benefit. This is available through the subsidiary non-profit, Lincoln Action Program Housing Development Corporation. Together they are involved in providing safe, decent, affordable housing low-income housing tax-credit financed rental developments in Lincoln and Wahoo Nebraska.
The Gathering Place soup kitchen is located on 1448 E Street in Lincoln Nebraska. They serve free evening meals to homeless, the very low income and near-homeless persons and families living within the immediate community.
Additional services and assistance programs
Early Head Start program was started in an effort to help children, pregnant women, newborns to 3 years of age and their families. This service recognizes that by providing support to youth, such as educational and medical assistance at an early age, children’s growth and development can be greatly improved.
Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Early Head Start promotes healthy prenatal care. In addition to that, the programs also seeks to enhance the development of toddlers and infants. Early Head Start encourages the child’s parents and/or guardians to be more involved in their child's development.
Services are available from a center-based option partnered with Educare of Lincoln, with the option of a home-based service. The home based option works by providing weekly visits in the comfort of your home. Home-based part of this service is to ensure that children from low-income households receive proper nutrition, medical and dental care, social/emotional engagement with children their age, and with developmental education.
Older children can benefit from Head Start. This is also offered through Community Action. Their Head Start program provides services to children between under the age of 6 and their families. This preschool readiness type program also promotes school readiness through socialization and cognitive development of the children. Head Start provides free health care, nutritional, educational, and other services to participant children and their parents as well.
As part of this resource, the staff work with parents and help in referring community other support services and public aid in Nebraska if needed.
Representative Payee Program is another service offered. It is for the elderly and seniors in the region. They can benefit from the social security approved program, which is offered by Community Action. This is the only service of its kind in the city of Lincoln.
Their Representative Payee solution is funded by the Social Security Administration and is there to provide financial case management for persons who receive government benefits such as S.S.I. or S.S.D.I., are older, or that have been deemed by a medical professional as not able of properly spending their benefit payments.
The person assigned to you makes sure that some of the community's vulnerable residents maintain monthly expenses, pay their bills on time, remain in stable housing, and have basic needs met. Find other national and local financial aid programs for seniors.
Employment and Job Training services are available from Community Action of Saunders and Lancaster. They know that gaining a new job or employment is a vital part to self-reliance, and education is a primary factor in getting and keeping a career. So to this end, the non-profit Community Action offers numerous services that focus on various employment, career counseling and job training needs.
Through services such as GED test preparation, soft-skills training, free computer workshops, and ESL classes with an employment emphasis, they assist clients. They can get help with addressing their individual barriers keeping them from getting a job. Case management and job placement assistance are there to better assist clients with reaching goals through adult education and employment services.
The onsite, free Computer Learning Lab is also there to offer classes in the following. Use a system for keyboard use, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office applications, resume building, and programs such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access. The lab is also available for persons to practice computer skills, write resumes, and conduct employment searches via the internet.
Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties also advocates for remote as well as home work. This means that residents who want a remote, work at home job can use the computer lab for assistance. There may be customer service roles, social media roles, healthcare and more. There are many remote, at home jobs to apply at.
Education is a focus of the community action agency as well. One key offering, the state of Nebraska GED Training Program, is there to provide individual instruction to meet students’ needs regardless of varying education and skill levels.
Their service provides instruction and training for no charge to the Lincoln and Sunder County community’s poor and vulnerable persons. Classes are offered during the week, for free to these students that qualify.
IDA - Individual Development Accounts are there to help people who have trouble saving money. With so many daily expenses that residents have on a day-to-day basis, saving money on a minimal budget can be hard and often impossible.
Community Action's Individual Development Account (IDA) program may be able to provide low-income persons, the working poor and families who want to build wealth, save money, and transform their economic dreams into reality. To show how this works, for every dollar IDA participants deposit into their IDA account, Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders will then add $2 to that amount.
Participants must use this savings for one of the following purposes such as financing the purchase of a home in Nebraska; to fund post-secondary education or starting or expanding a small business. This will in effect empowers participants who are struggling to reach their goals and work toward gaining economic self-sufficiency.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a partner on offering the Money Management Education service. This is a federal government funded course created whose goal is to help participants learn financial skills such as budgeting, credit management and saving. Community Action of Lancaster County Asset Development Administrator is there to provide expert guidance of how to pay down debt, negotiate payments with creditors, reduce medical bills, and how to set up a plan to reach long term economic independence.
Lancaster and Saunders Counties community action agencies also advocate to use technology as part of Money Management. As there are smartphone apps that are free to use and download and that can benefit households, including low income ones. They are simple to use when shopping, investing, budgeting, and even saving for retirement. Find a list of smartphone apps for low income households.
Weatherization Assistance, which is federally funded, is a resource to use to prevent heat loss and to help consumers save money towards their annual utility bill. This program will help do this by adding modifications to your home that will in effect reduce your homes energy consumption, and optimize the efficiency of your home.
Weatherizing your home is the most important, and best way to lower both heating and utility bills. The process helps the family stay cool in the summer and warmer during the winter months. Homeowners can potentially save hundreds of dollars per year on their bills.
Free federal and state of Pennsylvania Tax Preparation Services are offered by Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders through the combined efforts of Lincoln's Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Coalition and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
A key offering is Lincoln's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which is one of Community Action’s programs. The VITA program functions through the use of volunteers from the community, and provides free income tax preparation and filing services to low and moderate income persons and families within Lancaster and Saunders Counties.
Phone number for Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties
For more details on all of these services or other financial or material aid, dial the site or the main address is 210 O Street, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508. Call (402) 471-4515.
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