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.
