From downtown Omaha to the shadow of Scotts Bluff National Monument,... the chronic lack of in-state workers to fill jobs...brought an unusual pair of groups to North Platte Dec. 1 as they build a coalition of agricultural, business, health care, education, labor and community leaders from one end of the state to the other.
‘Who Would Jesus Deport?’: OTOC and Allies Stand in Solidarity with Immigrants and Refugees
Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) and allies held a Stand in Solidarity Event to show broad support for immigrant and refugee families, who have long been a part of the fabric of their Nebraska community.
The action featured a powerful lineup of speakers, including OTOC faith and labor leaders and key allies: the president and CEO of Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, president of Nebraska State AFL-CIO, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, co-founder of the Afghan American Foundation, and the CEO of the Latino Economic Development Council.
Read moreOTOC Announces New Alliance Supporting Immigration Reform to Address Nebraska Workforce Gap
[Excerpts]
Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) leaders conducted more than 100 meetings over the past three years with Nebraska agricultural, health-care, labor, education, hospitality, philanthropic, faith, construction, immigrant, legal, banking, and community leaders to learn more about our workforce needs.
We learned [for example] that an owner of a dairy farm had been awake for almost 48 hours milking his cows because his short-term immigrant staff had to leave Nebraska when their work visas expired. We heard of immigrants with work visas who can come to the U.S. with their families, but their spouses and working-age children are not allowed to work....
According to a recent study funded by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce Foundation, 'There is universal and widespread business support for immigration reform as a means to address the workforce gap in Nebraska....'
As result of these meetings, a statewide non-partisan alliance has formed. The Nebraska Alliance for Thriving Communities includes leaders from across the state. This 70-member Alliance agrees on a common-sense set of immigration priorities to enrich our communities and address Nebraska’s workforce shortage.
Read moreOTOC Agenda Gets Unanimous Support from 11 Candidates for Federal & Nebraska Legislative Office
Republican and Democratic candidates for federal office committed to advance reforms in immigration, childcare access, and humanitarian parole. State issues included access to drivers’ licenses and unemployment insurance, and preservation of ballot initiatives. All issues emerged from a conversation campaign of over 150 meetings across the state.
[Excerpts]
Nearly 400 leaders of Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) member institutions met Sunday (Oct. 20) at St. Pius X Catholic Church with eleven candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives and State Legislature as OTOC sought commitments to support solutions on key issues important to the membership....
OTOC leaders presented their personal stories illustrating the need for: the creation of pathways to permanency for long-term immigrant Nebraskans; the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant program to expand access to childcare; and for the creation of a humanitarian parole program for the Sudanese. Representative Don Bacon, State Senator Tony Vargas, and Preston Love Jr. unanimously supported all three Federal OTOC initiatives.
OTOC leaders again presented State Legislative candidates with their personal stories illustrating the need for: expanding drivers’ licenses to all Nebraska residents; expanding access to unemployment insurance for all work-authorized Nebraskans; and protecting the role of citizens by preserving the ballot initiative process....
[Photo Credit: Cass Opal]
In a Tight Presidential Race, Omaha is Basking in its Political Relevance, New York Times [pdf]
Candidates Commit to Pro-Immigrant Causes at Omaha Coalition's Accountability Session, KETV 7 Omaha [pdf]
Nonpartisan Organization Omaha Together One Community Hosts a Candidate Accountability Session, KMTV 3 Omaha [pdf]
OTOC Agenda Gets Unanimous Support at Candidates Accountability Session, OTOC
OTOC Partners with Nebraska Chamber for Immigration Reform
[Excerpt]
It sprang from months of talks between the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Omaha Together One Community, a 30-year-old, faith-based advocacy group that had mainly focused on social justice issues in its home city.
They say it’s time for Nebraska to aggressively recruit internationally to grow its workforce — in other words, welcome immigrants....
Read moreOTOC Celebrates Payday Lending Victory in Passage of Initiative 428
After three and a half years working to cap "sky-high" fees that Nebraska payday lenders charge, Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) won a landslide victory (83% to 17%) for statewide Initiative 428, reducing maximum interest rates on payday loans from 387% to 36%.
Payday Lending Regulation Is On the Ballot in Nebraska Amid Sky-High Interest Rates, Yahoo Finance
Nebraskans Vote to Cap Interest Rates on Payday Loans, NPR Marketplace Morning Report
OTOC Leverages $10 Million in County Funding for Rental Aid
Four months into the pandemic, OTOC leaders recognized that housing instability was a serious public health issue. Eviction court had been open since the moratorium issued by Governor Ricketts on evictions expired at the end of May, and even federally-funded housing project tenants would become vulnerable again at the end of July.
OTOC leaders conducted research and found that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a startling 47% of renters in Douglas County were rent-burdened, meaning that they spend over 30% of their monthly income on rent. With 46,557 new initial claims for unemployment in Douglas County filed between 3/21-6/13, OTOC argued that there were more rent burdened residents than ever. A new report on evictions in Omaha clearly demonstrated how minority and low-income neighborhoods in North and South Omaha became hotspots both for COVID-19 infections and evictions.
OTOC worked with the County Commissioners to develop a rental assistance program for those who have been hit especially hard during this pandemic. The Douglas County Board of Commissioners responded July 14th with a finalized plan that allocated $10 million of the $166 million of Douglas County’s CARES Act funds for rental assistance. Influential in this decision was the engagement of leaders from Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) who met with many of the Commissioners to discuss the imminent threat of COVID-19 related evictions and how CARES Act funds could help keep impacted families in their homes.
Said OTOC leader and member of Augustana Lutheran Church, Gloria Austerberry:
"Under normal circumstances, evictions are detrimental for families. In the context of the pandemic, evictions hurt the whole community by removing the ability to practice social isolation safely in their homes...
Preventing them whenever possible protects children especially, and all the institutions like education, social services, and health care that serve them. We are pleased that the Commissioners have prioritized keeping people in their homes and are doing their part to keep our County healthy and safe.”
[Photo Credit: Brendan Sullivan, World-Herald]
Midland Voices: Rental Challenges Are Enormous. Counry Board Can Help Greatly, Omaha World-Herald [pdf]
OTOC Challenges Landlords to Work with Community
There's a fight in federal court over the Omaha rental registry which was supposed to go into effect January 1st. Negotiated carefully with extensive input from Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) and local landlords, the registry would allow City inspectors to review a property, even those without a filed complaint, as one step to stop slumlords from taking advantage of tenants.
The registry was negotiated months after 500 refugees were forced out of apartments with 2,000+ code violations. Months before it was set to go into effect, the Metro Omaha Property Owners Association filed a suit against it.
OTOC leaders are now publicly challenging landlords to work with the community to ensure dignified housing for all Omahan residents.
Landlord Group Sues City of Omaha in Attempt to Block Rental Registry, Inspection Program, Omaha World-Herald
Property Owners Assn. Filed Federal Lawsuit Over Omaha Rental Registry, KETV Omaha
OTOC Fights Delays in Medicaid Expansion, Urges Legislators to "Honor the Vote"
Eleven months after leveraging enough votes across the state to expand Medicaid in Nebraska, state legislators have manufactured delays and complications hindering its implementation. In response, OTOC leaders and allies traveled to the Capitol to call on legislators to "honor the vote" and fulfill the will of Nebraskan voters.
At a press conference outside, OTOC leader Dr. Carol LaCroix, a family physician, questioned why the governor’s administration was erecting barriers to care and significantly delaying implementation of expansion. In the hearing itself, OTOC leader Mary Spurgeon (photo above) itemized the harm done by failing to expand Medicaid for the seventh year, pointing out that the altering of the law, passed as Initiative 427, constituted a failure by the governor and legislators to carry out constitutional duties.
Following the hearing, OTOC leaders delivered copies of their testimony to the governor and senators. Leaders are now urging constituents to contact their senators on this issue.
OTOC Leaders Testify Against Delays and Complications of Medicaid, Omaha Together One Community
OTOC Persists in Push for Proactive Housing Inspections in Omaha
In advance of a vote that may occur as early as April 2nd, OTOC and the Apartment Owners Association of Nebraska (AAN) intered into negotiation about areas of agreement to jointly present to the City Council and Mayor. The AAN represents the owners of half the rental properties in Omaha.
The invitation to negotiate occurred after 40 tenants, landlords, community organizations, social service organizations, pastors organized by OTOC spoke in favor of reform at a four-hour city council hearing on March 12 (in photo above). OTOC leaders Karen McElroy, Rosie Volkmer, Gloria Austerberry, Dennis Walsh, Susan Kuhlman and Paul Romero laid out a comprehensive narrative that covered the history of substandard property rentals in the city, the failures of the current complaint-based system and the extensive research in support of rental inspection programs. At the request of City Council members, OTOC submitted recommendations of what ought to be amendments to the Mayor's proposed ordinance.
OTOC leaders urge supporters to continue to pressure their elected representatives to support a system of landlord registration with proactive inspections to ensure that all people have access to healthy homes.
Omaha Tenants Say Inspections Will Make Homes Safer; Landlords Say Rents Will Rise, Omaha World-Herald
OTOC Fights for Dignified Rental Housing in Omaha
After 500 tenants were forced out of their homes due to residential code violations by their landlords, Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) leaders launched a campaign to ensure decent living standards for renters.
OTOC research actions on housing code violations soon revealed that the vast majority of violations occurred in low-income, predominantly minority communities with disproportionate numbers of elderly and refugee residents -- many of whom are reluctant to complain. OTOC leaders are now pushing for local changes including required registration of all residential rental property and proactive inspections by the City of Omaha.
At recent press conference, Dennis Walsh of OTOC argued, "Registration and inspection creates a healthier market not a more expensive market.”
Having helped shape Legislative Bill 85, which would require cities like Omaha to implement these reforms, Walsh and other OTOC leaders are mobilizing at the state level to ensure dignified housing.
Midland Voices (Oped): Omaha Needs to Provide Effective, Affordable Reform of Rental Oversight, Omaha World-Herald
Beckas Beat: Do We Live In a Perfect World?, FOX 42 News
Woman, Daughter Homeless After Rental House Inspection Notes Imminent Danger, KETV 7
#wedontslum Calls Attention to Omaha Slumlords, KMTV News
New Website 'We Don't Slum' Aims to Put Pressure on Problem Landlords, Omaha World-Herald
New Website Launches to Spread Awareness About Slumlords, KETV 7 News
Omaha City Council gives owner time to fix properties before voting on his TIF application, KETV 7 News
Landlords, renters clash over idea of rental inspections in Omaha and Lincoln, Omaha World-Herald
OTOC Fact Sheet on LB 85, OTOC