Introduction

The City of Omaha seeks a qualified consultant team with national experience in the topic of housing affordability to support City staff with the development of an Affordable Housing Action Plan, updating Omaha's Consolidated Plan and the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing document (Omaha-Council Bluffs Regional Assessment of Fair Housing). The selected consultant team will meet with the City of Omaha to develop a detailed scope of services for the project based on the Scope of Work.

Project Background

The City of Omaha has worked with community partners for many years to address housing affordability through multiple efforts, however housing affordability is reaching a tipping point, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic which brought many housing challenges to the forefront.

The City of Omaha develops a consolidated housing plan as required by HUD and recently participated in the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing process which produced great insight into our community's housing challenges. The result of this process allowed the city to take meaningful actions that, taken together, address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, while fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.

In addition to the efforts mentioned above, a community partner completed a metropolitan area housing assessment and based upon its findings has developed strategies to addressing housing affordability.