ReImagine brings partnership and collaboration to reinvigorate the homelessness system, by setting new norms and efficiencies, strengthening capacity through training and evaluation, all while prioritizing lived experience and frontline voices.

Our Vision

ReImagine envisions a future with equitable and established standards of care that prioritize transparent and humanitarian practices. We know this is possible inside a consistent system of accountability that elevates and promotes the health and wellbeing of all, with an emphasis on housing stability, and the prevention and ending of homelessness in our community.

Started in 2021, “Reimagine workshops” were held for frontline workers to imagine the optimal homelessness system. Participants represented cross-sector work within homelessness services, from shelters, outreach, supportive services, eviction prevention, as well as agencies serving specific populations. They were invited as individuals with their own expertise, not as representatives of their organizations, and participation mirrored the demographics of people experiencing homelessness in the Omaha metro area, centering race, ethnicity, and disability. 94% self-disclosed as having lived experience of housing instability and/or homelessness.

The collective energy unlocked was undeniable, a team was formed, and 501c3 has been launched. The team intentionally reflects and includes people who have experienced homelessness in the Omaha metro area: 54% of the implementation and founding team are Black, Brown, Indigenous or a person of color, and 31% identify as LGBTQIA+

"A lot of case managers mean well and want to help, but they don't know how to...their heart is in the right place, but a lot of times they are underprepared on an individual basis."

During a 2022 focus group with emergency shelter residents, a participant (named S for anonymity) said she had been living at a local emergency shelter for three years, without a consistent case worker nor any conversations regarding housing with shelter staff. S’s brother was willing to pay for her housing costs, and S needed support identifying an apartment and negotiating with property management due to a past eviction and criminal background barriers.

Metro Housing Collaborative (MHC) connected with S, identified several apartment options in her preferred locations, provided support negotiating with property managers, offered incentives to waive eviction and criminal history screening criteria, and included S’s brother who ultimately paid for housing costs. MHC went beyond their current scope to support S in getting housed, given the absence of a shelter case manager. S signed a lease within three weeks of being connected to MHC, after waiting for three years for this support to be offered while in emergency shelter.

ReImagine’s framework offers solutions that would have resulted in S having immediate housing conversations when she entered shelter, and having partnership with MHC. Our framework supports a frontline and lived experience-driven set of solutions that will better meet the needs of unhoused people in Omaha in order to reduce the number of people entering homelessness, reduce the average length of time homeless, and reduce returns to homelessness – making homelessness rare, brief and one-time for people who experience a housing crisis.

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