Omaha’s Open Door Mission looking to add more supportive housing units

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Alberto Garcia, 31, says he spent about a month being homeless several years ago.

“One day, I ended up drinking, crashing my ex’s car,” Garcia said. “After a month of going in and out of jail, I ended up here at the Open Door Mission.”

That was two years ago. Now, he’s living at the mission’s Rebuilding Lives Center and told 6 News he’s 18 months sober.

“It’s just an amazing place to live, an amazing community,” he said. “But taking that next step is important and crucial.”

He said credit issues and rent prices have made taking that step difficult.

The mission’s president and CEO Candace Gregory said inflation is the main driver of why Garcia and many others are coming in for help.

“We’re seeing an increase across the board,” Gregory said. “Not only in safe shelter services, but in homeless prevention. We have almost a 30% increase in services.”

A lot of the homeless who wind up at the shelter have mental health and substance use issues, so it isn’t as simple as pushing them back out on their own.

And while the Open Door Mission has 41 permanent supportive housing units with subsidized rent and on-site managers, it said those units aren’t enough to meet the need, and hundreds are on the waiting list.

“There is such a shortage of housing available in our community that they’re staying here much longer than they want to or intended to,” Gregory said.

That’s why they want to add more than 150 other housing units to its campus near 20th and East Locust streets with a $43 million expansion effort.

But they’re asking for the community’s help in raising funds for that.

“There’s just not enough tax credits in Nebraska to fund every project,” Gregory said.

For his part, Garcia feels he would’ve still been in a rut without permanent supportive housing.

“I probably would’ve ended up in jail,” he said. “I wouldn’t have known how to handle a breakup and all the stuff I was going through.”

Right now, the Open Door Mission doesn’t have a timeline on when it will break ground on the housing expansion project.

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