Brenda Finnegan’s breath was visible in the cold December air as she approached a makeshift shelter beneath a South Omaha bridge.
“Outreach! Anybody home?” Finnegan called out as she leaned down to knock on the wood paneling. It took a moment for the man inside to stir.
Finnegan’s colleagues, Lexi Kellogg and Veroniqa Kosiba, asked his name.
“Albert,” he responded. The trio gave him a protein pack, socks, a card with a phone number and a promise to check back in the following day.
“Thank you, sir. See you tomorrow,” Kellogg and Kosiba said before making their way across a snowy field back to their minivan packed with supplies.
Finnegan leads a small but efficient street outreach team through the Stephen Center, an Omaha homeless shelter that offers addiction and mental health services.
The three-person team is among a collaborative group of trained professionals bringing resources to the city’s most vulnerable population. Their work is also a key component in a six-month pilot program championed by the mayor’s office to address a rise in homeless encampments on public property.
That initiative has changed the way the city and agencies track and respond to homelessness. So far, Finnegan said, the program seems to be working.
Building connections
It can take years to connect an individual experiencing homelessness with long-term housing. The first step is often a brief interaction, like the team’s conversation with Albert. There are introductions, a shared phone number and gentle prompting to fill out paperwork that can help keep track of individuals and their specific needs.
Keeping track of people is one of the biggest challenges, Kellogg said. Individuals living on the street are in a state of near-constant transit. They may move from place to place for mental health reasons, addiction, safety concerns or simply to stay warm in freezing temperatures.
Blake Scharpf had his first interaction with a street outreach team about three months ago. He was homeless at the time, experiencing a mental health crisis worsened by addiction.
“My need for using drugs was greater than my need for food and shelter,” Scharpf said. “Outreach was there all the time. They’d come by and they drop off Gatorade, clothes and just check in on us. It was a glimmer of hope.”
Scharpf searched for a way off the streets. He sought help through the Lasting Hope Recovery Center and secured a bed at the Stephen Center. As of early December, he has been sober for 45 days.
There are no true boundaries that dictate where in the city the Stephen Center’s street outreach team can operate, but they do typically stay in South Omaha. Outreach teams from other organizations focus on other parts of the city.
The groups have always communicated, Finnegan said. Under the new pilot program she’s seen more intentional collaboration.
“I think, for a long time, other than referrals and outreach and stuff, people acted in a silo,” Finnegan said. “This encampment project has brought us together in a lot of different ways.”
Street outreach teams from multiple agencies are about six weeks into the six-month pilot program. The initiative is supported by the mayor’s office and led by the Threshold Continuum of Care, an area nonprofit that coordinates data and responses to housing needs for the Omaha area, including the annual point-in-time count.
The plan aims to reduce a growing number of homeless encampments and was publicly announced by Mayor John Ewing and Threshold’s Executive Director Jason Feldhaus on Oct. 31. The program calls for an electronic reporting system to track encampments, a public dashboard with encampment data and a coordinated response from local agencies to prioritize access to emergency shelter and permanent housing.
“I want to be really clear, this initiative will not end homelessness overnight,” Feldhaus said at the time, “but this pilot represents a new approach, a coordinated, compassionate and countable response. It’s a recognition that we can’t do everything at once, but we can do something meaningful right now.”
The pilot also sets a deadline for vacating an encampment. Once the city is made aware of an encampment, they give 10 days for the occupants to leave. That timeline has been especially helpful, Finnegan said.
“Nobody likes to just be in limbo,” Finnegan said. “Those boundaries create trust and safety.”
Ewing publicly supported the program as an alternative to a proposed city ordinance that looked to ban homeless encampments on city property.
Introduced by Councilman Brinker Harding, the ordinance would have required that police or first responders give those living in encampments the option of moving to a shelter before issuing a citation or making an arrest. Any person found guilty of violating the ordinance could face a fine up to $300, 30 days in jail, or both.
An amendment to the proposal added a diversion program intended to keep the citations from escalating to jail time. Despite that change being widely supported by council members, the ordinance was voted down five to two. A majority of council members said they wanted to give the pilot program a chance before moving toward potential criminalization of homelessness.
The decision set a clear course of action in a months-long discussion on how to address a rise in homeless encampments across the city.
‘It’s about survival’
Difficult conditions in the summer months turn brutal in winter. The deadly cold of the season set in just a few weeks ago, but reports of frostbite have already begun.
“Over the weekend, I actually got a call that one of my first clients was hospitalized for frostbite, so it’s already starting this year,” Kosiba said.
The three-person team was back in their office at the Stephen Center. The sounds of echoing conversations could be heard from a community space down the hall. Finnegan unzipped her winter coat and took a seat. She’s heard a lot of questions from the public over the years.
“Why are you giving them blankets? Why are you giving them sleeping bags? Why are you giving them supplies? Because we don’t want them to die out there,” Finnegan said. “Many people lose legs and feet from frostbite. People have died.”
Those conversations have become more common as the topic of homeless encampments circulates local media and public meetings. There was significant public pushback on Harding’s proposed ordinance, but there was also a general understanding that the city and agencies must take action to address the living conditions of those on the streets.
There’s a “counterbalance,” Feldhaus said.
“There’s also the general citizenry of our community. Businesses, neighborhoods, individuals who also have the same right to that space as an individual who’s homeless,” Feldhaus said. “We are hoping this pilot program balances both of those a little more effectively.”
Finnegan is optimistic the pilot program will work as intended.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of good data that proves that outreach is necessary,” Finnegan said. “I’m hopeful, and I think that the agencies have all come together.”