Redress Leads the Opposition to Failed Anti-Unhoused Ordinance From a Racial Justice Lens
October 30, 2025
On October 21st, the Omaha City Council voted down an ordinance to further criminalize unhoused people after The Redress Movement and other groups mobilized to oppose it over the past month. Redress specifically pointed out that the ordinance would have disproportionately increased criminalization of unhoused Black Omahans. This was a short-term win, but it is also helping us build toward our longer-term goals of protecting formerly redlined communities from displacement so people don’t end up on the street in the first place.
Councilmember Brinker Harding introduced the ordinance on August 26th, not long after President Trump issued his executive order calling for increased criminalization and institutionalization of unhoused people.1 This executive order and most recent state and local bills attempting to criminalize homelessness are heavily influenced by the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank, bank-rolled by the billionaire founder of Palantir.2
Redress quickly mobilized and circulated a sign-on letter from 12 organizations, including the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, NAACP Omaha, and Nebraska Appleseed. We emphasized that everyone deserves a safe place to lay their head, regardless of race, zip code, or background, but in Omaha you need to make $20/hour to afford a one-bedroom apartment and $24/hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment.3 There is an extreme shortage of affordable and available rental homes for lower income households.4 Increasing criminalization does nothing to solve this underlying math problem for the 65,000+ cost-burdened households in Omaha.5
Our letter specifically pointed out that this ordinance would increase racial disparities and exacerbate mass incarceration. As an example, African Americans make up only 7.5% of the three-county area served by Threshold Continuum of Care, but 27.3% of the unhoused people in the 2024 Point In Time count.6 This means Black people would be nearly four times more likely to face the harassment, fines, and incarceration proposed in the ordinance.
Redress also mobilized speakers for the City Council public hearing on September 23rd, helping to generate three hours of testimony in support of permanent supportive housing instead of wasting resources on policing, encampment sweeps, and jail beds.7 Our opposition and Mayor Ewing’s plan to work more closely with local service providers to both offer more services and clear encampments faster, helped delay a final vote to October 21st. In advance of that vote, Councilmember Harding proposed an amendment that would still criminalize people for life-sustaining activities like sleeping, eating, or sitting in public spaces. Redress reiterated our opposition with a second letter and action alert and both the amendment and the ordinance failed 5-2 with Councilmembers Hug, Goodwin, Begley, Rowe and Festersen voting against it.8
While this was an important victory, it’s just a small step toward our larger goals of instituting new protections for communities that have faced decades of discrimination and displacement. In particular, Redress is currently organizing to educate public housing residents in Omaha about their right to an attorney during eviction proceedings - a right we hope to eventually expand to all renters in the city, similar to dozens of other cities with right to counsel programs like Tulsa, Nashville, Kansas City, Louisville, and Chattanooga.9
As we continue to build power, we will also be working toward protecting families with housing choice vouchers (“Section 8”) from discrimination by landlords. Sign up here to receive updates and get in touch with our Senior Campaign Organizer, Clarice.
Endnotes:
1Steve Berg, “What the Recent Executive Order Does and Doesn’t Do,” National Alliance to End Homelessness, August 4, 2025, https://endhomelessness.org/blog/what-the-recent-executive-order-does-and-doesnt-do/.
2“Homelessness,” The Cicero Institute, 2025, https://ciceroinstitute.org/issues/homelessness/; “Joe Lonsdale,” The Cicero Institute, 2025, https://ciceroinstitute.org/people/joe-lonsdale/.
3Out of Reach, National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2025, https://nlihc.org/oor/state/ne.
4The Gap, National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2025, https://nlihc.org/gap/state/ne.
52023 ACS 1 Yr estimates of renter and homeowner households paying more than 30% of their income toward housing costs.
62023 ACS 1 Yr estimates and 2024 Point-in-Time Omaha/Council Bluffs CoC, Institute for Community Alliances, 1/17/2025, pg. 15, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/65d7214020b1cc71cbbe03c2/t/682e3b4afe942b1856c1640e/1747860298667/2024-Threshold-PIT-Count-s89e.pdf.
7Julie Anderson, “Omaha City Council delays vote on criminalizing camping on public property,” Omaha World-Herald, October 1, 2025, omaha.com/news/local/government-politics/article_11260d7f-6030-4fc3-b1da-4f004ed43690.html.
8Julie Anderson, “Omaha City Council rejects homeless encampment crackdown proposal,” Omaha World-Herald, October 21, 2025, https://omaha.com/news/local/government-politics/article_0398f545-6211-4841-afd1-d397cecba509.html.
9“Eviction Right to Counsel Resource Center,” STOUT,
