Family Self Sufficiency

The Omaha Housing Authority Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Program is a voluntary program that offers an opportunity for residents who are serious about changing their economic future. View brochure.

The ultimate goal of the FSS Program is that FSS participants set goals of becoming gainfully employed and free of public assistance. The FSS team works by helping participants to develop the skills, education and self-confidence needed to become self-sufficient. By connecting participants with appropriate supportive service agencies such as; job training, job placement, budgeting counseling, health care, child care, legal services, emergency services, substance abuse treatment. These resources allow participants to invest time and energy into achieving their life plan.

The most common long-term goal for FSS participants is Home ownership as a life long goal. Home ownership may or may not be a realistic goal for a family within the time frame of the FSS contract, but it can very well be an excellent foundation for a family to begin making positive life changes that will have everlasting effects on all members of the household.

Benefits of Family Self Sufficiency:

One of the most important benefits of the FSS program is the escrow account. The escrow account is an individual savings account that is set up by OHA. For each participant the money is held in savings until the individual or family meets the goals they have established. The amount of money deposited is a direct result of the participants increased contribution to their rent, due to an increase in earnings after joining the FSS program. This provides a tremendous incentive for change!

Who is eligible to participate in the FSS program?

FSS is a voluntary program, open to current residents in the Public Housing or the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program.

For More information contact Section 8 at 402-444-7100 ext. 229 or 332 or Public Housing FSS: 402-444-7100 ext. 213.

FSS Success Story

LaTasha Edwards, 29, a Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program participant, and a senior at Bellevue University who graduates in November of this year, knows exactly what it is like to experience this dream of buying a house. As a Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) participant for the last two and one half years with the Omaha Housing Authority (OHA), she is now eligible to buy her own house. On June 15th she was awarded an Escrow-account (an interest-bearing savings account) check for this accomplishment from the OHA. “Edwards’s check is essentially all of her rent that she paid these past five years while she was in [the program],” said Travistene Jones, an OHA FSS coordinator.

Now that LaTasha has her own house for herself and her two children: she feels more accomplished in life. “Getting a house at age 30 was one of my goals,” she said. Now that LaTasha owns her own house, she is not in the FSS program. Looking back, LaTasha liked the FSS program because it helped keep her on track of her goals. LaTasha explained the process of the FSS program, a program that gets a person in a financial situation that can support itself by its own means. The process starts by pulling an individual’s credit report, which then helps set the individual’s personal goals which can be accomplished in the given time allotted. She said she is not the only person of her age to be eligible for a house. “The Family Self-Sufficiency program is open to all age groups,” Edwards said. “It is given to you as an option. The people that want a home can own a home.”

LaTasha is grateful for the staff at the Omaha Housing Authority. Without their kindness and support she said she would have been lost. “The OHA employees are very informative, easy to talk to – they do not belittle you in any way – and are extremely helpful,” she said. “They kept me on track. You just have to have faith in yourself and stick with it.”