Omaha’s unsheltered homelessness rising at fastest rate of any U.S. city

Metro area’s unsheltered homeless population remains one of the smallest per capita, but advocates say more is needed to help a vulnerable and evolving group.

The freezing wind swept across the asphalt. People clutching their coats hustled inside the midtown Omaha Target, scurrying past a shopping cart piled with blankets. Inside, Jonathan Martin sipped his Starbucks as he listened to the questions.

“What’s your birthday?” asked Todd Fleischer. 

“Dec. 5,” replied Martin, his face hidden behind a knit cap, tan hoodie and frizzy beard.

“Oh, happy belated birthday. Let’s see here,” Fleischer said as he looked over the survey, “where are you sleeping tonight?”

That conversation was repeated again and again in late January. In the woods, under bridges and behind buildings, people like Fleischer searched for people like Martin living unsheltered and homeless for a nationwide count done annually to better understand homelessness.

In Omaha, the data paints a stark picture.

Since 2013, unsheltered homelessness has grown more in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area than any other major U.S. metro area served by a federally funded homeless aid organization, according to Department of Housing and Urban Development data. (The data doesn’t include cities without one of those organizations, such as New Orleans and St. Louis.)

At the same time, the Omaha metro has added some of the fewest housing options specifically for homeless people. It also has one of the highest rates of people experiencing homelessness again within two years of leaving it, data shows.

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There are also good signs in Omaha. Overall homelessness – which includes homeless people staying in shelters – increased slightly in the last dozen years but not as much as many other cities around the country. And Omaha’s unsheltered homeless population is one of the smallest per capita, according to a Flatwater Free Press analysis. 

Still, the rise in unsheltered homelessness has stretched resources thin, advocates said.

A decade ago Pete Miller, one of the first people to do street outreach in Omaha, could find someone an apartment within a month or two of meeting them through a program called Rapid Rehousing — a quick fix with subsidized rent while someone looks for a long-term solution. Now, he said, that list is hopelessly backlogged.

“We tell people it’s called Rapid Rehousing, but there’s nothing rapid about it,” said the street outreach manager with Threshold Continuum of Care, which oversees homelessness services in Douglas, Sarpy and Pottawattamie counties.

Omaha’s homeless population has also changed, said Tamara Dwyer, the city’s homeless services coordinator. There’s limited shelter for homeless families and kids, both demographics on the rise. Many couples choose to live unsheltered rather than split into separate men’s and women’s shelters, Dwyer said.

In 2007 the city had a nearly identical number of people living unsheltered and homeless as today. The city responded by upping services and building housing, which brought the number down, she said.

That was the first year that HUD required the now more than 400 homeless aid organizations it funds to tally up homeless people every January during what’s called a Point-in-Time Count.  

But as the years went by, funding and services seemed to stagnate as the homeless population in Omaha again began to climb, Dwyer said. In some cases, no one from the Omaha metro even applied for certain federal funds because the area lacked programs to spend them on, Dwyer said. 

Advocates are now playing catch up as demand continues to increase. 

“The need has outpaced capacity,” Dwyer said.

Those needs were apparent during the Jan. 21 Point-In-Time count.

Todd Fleischer (left), Janelle DePuydt (center) and Melissa Neuenfeldt (right) peak under a bridge near the Keystone Trail in Omaha on Jan. 21, 2025. The trio were checking common sleeping spots for Omaha’s unsheltered homeless population as part of the annual nationwide Point-in-Time Count. The survey is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to better understand the nation’s homeless population.
Volunteers for the Point-in-Time Count, an annual survey of the nation’s homeless population, stop and talk to Allison (left) on the Keystone Trail on Jan. 21, 2025. Allison normally sleeps outside, but recent freezing temperatures pushed her and several others to rent a motel room. Photos by Abioloa Kosoko for the Flatwater Free Press

Martin had been homeless for years. He’d given up getting a job after so many applications ended in rejection, he said. 

Chronic homelessness can be a hard cycle to break, said Melissa Neuenfeldt, director of HEAL Omaha, which brings medicine and health care to people living outside.

Last summer she started working with a man named Paul Duis. In August he was living in his GMC van among broken down cars parked behind a mechanic’s shop off Maple Street. His heart was also failing. In late December he’d gotten so sick he had to go into hospice care, Neuenfeldt said.

Now that he’s getting treatment, he’s much better, she said. He can’t reverse the damage he’s done to his heart, but he has more time to spend with his family.

“It’s amazing how much housing can change things,” she said.

On Jan. 21 Neuenfeldt gave instructions on spotting frostbite to the 50 or so volunteers who gathered at the Stephen Center in South Omaha ahead of the count. Look for waxy skin, she told the volunteers from organizations like Heartland Family Services, Together Inc., the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and others. Check people’s noses. 

The team had hand warmers to give out along with naloxone, a drug commonly referred to as Narcan that reverses the effect of an overdose, and condoms. The counters wore extra socks, snow boots and insulated overalls.

Neuenfeldt’s team went up and down the Keystone Trail along the Little Papillion Creek. They ran into Allison, a woman living unsheltered and homeless that Neuenfeldt knew. Allison was on her way to a motel that she and several others were sharing to get out of the cold.

The homeless count process isn’t perfect and the figures vary depending on the day or weather. On Jan. 21, a lot of people who normally slept outside were sleeping on the floors of local shelters or in hotel rooms to avoid a cold front that had brought nearly -30 degree temperatures with wind chill the previous night. 

“It’s a snapshot of a blur,” said Miller, the outreach manager.

Neuenfeldt wasn’t too worried that the weather would affect Omaha’s understanding of its homeless population. And the count itself can actually last longer than a day. Street outreach workers had been logging people in the weeks leading up to the count and would continue to do so after that night. 

Dwyer, the city’s homeless services coordinator, said the area has really refined its count strategy and each year’s data is better and better. 

Still, the final product will always be an undercount. It’s impossible to find everyone sleeping outside. People sleeping on a friend’s couch or in a hotel also can’t be counted because they don’t meet HUD’s standards for homelessness.

But over time it does provide insight. It shows the area has made some progress. The overall homeless population remains one of the smallest in the country — though its size is a bit above average when adjusted for population.

A shopping cart piled with blankets stands outside the entrance to Target on 72nd and Dodge streets on Jan. 21, 2025. Jonathan Martin covers himself with blankets to sleep outside through the winter in Omaha. A cold front brought temperatures nearing -30 degrees with wind chill the night before. Photo by Abioloa Kosoko for the Flatwater Free Press

The data also helps inform solutions, said Jason Feldhaus, the director of Threshold CoC. People tend to stay in housing meant to be a temporary solution to homelessness a little longer, he said. The system could do better about connecting those people with their next step.

But that’s easier said than done.

Last year, Omaha was the ninth hardest place to rent, according to RentCafe, an apartment search website that also releases market analyses. Demand is driving rents up and people who used to scrape by are now being pushed into a homelessness system already stretched to its limits, Feldhaus said.

“We’ve reached our threshold,” Feldhaus said. “The homeless system can only do so much” 

Money for homeless services or prevention has been getting thin in recent years, Dwyer said. COVID-19 relief money, millions of which funded housing, emergency rent assistance and street outreach, expired.

Of the $3.6 billion the federal government sent to cities and states this year, Omaha received about $7 million, or about $4,400 per person experiencing homelessness. While that amount has grown in recent years, it’s still below average for per capita spending: Detroit gets about $23,000 per person while New York City gets only $1,200.

City officials and philanthropists have also invested more in building housing after an Omaha Community Foundation report showed Omaha desperately needed more. But Feldhaus said the same investments haven’t been made for the most vulnerable people.

“If the community is uncomfortable with what they’re seeing with homelessness, then we have to have a serious conversation,” Feldhaus said. “‘What are our core values? What are we willing to invest in?’”

Martin is also at a bit of a crossroads.

For about nine months he’s panhandled outside the Target on 72nd and Dodge streets. He’s slept behind the nearby Petco.

But lately people have been calling the police on him and he’s had to find somewhere else to rest. He can’t go too far, though. He can’t take his shopping cart with blankets and other supplies on the bus. 

When asked how he feels about the volunteers counting him and others — about how it feels to be part of a national effort to understand homeless — Martin just shrugs.

He’s been counted before. He might be counted again next year. Right now he’s got other concerns. He wants to avoid the police and make enough money to eat. He wants to finish his tall, hot coffee and warm up a bit before heading back outside to survive another cold night in Omaha.

Editor’s note: an earlier version of this story said Omaha’s overall homeless population had decreased since 2013. It has increased.

By Chris Bowling

Chris Bowling is an investigative reporter for Flatwater Free Press. Prior to joining Flatwater Free Press Chris was an investigative reporter and editor for The Reader, Omaha's alternative monthly newspaper where he focused on issues like climate change, housing, health, criminal justice and social issues. A native of Cincinnati, Bowling graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2018.

1 Comment

“Last year, Omaha was the ninth hardest place to rent, according to RentCafe, an apartment search website that also releases market analyses.” like getting statistics from one of the foxes watching the chicken coop. RentCafe is a Yardi product, Yardi and RealPage are similar companies offering similar products and services to rental housing owners. In fact, Yardi once sued RealPage. A topic of investigative interest to the DOJ for collusion and price fixing, at least before afflicted with the current Trump Administration. Omaha NE is an attractive market with minimal tenant protections, no rent control regulation and free rein for owners/investors/management companies.

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