Nine Omaha-area community members are swapping their everyday routines for choreographed dance numbers this Friday night, all in the name of helping young people who have nowhere else to turn. Youth Emergency Services will hold its annual Dance for a Chance fundraiser at The Astro in La Vista, with doors opening at 6 p.m. and dancing beginning at 7 p.m.
The event, now in its 17th year, pairs community leaders with dance instructors who spend weeks crafting routines, selecting music and rehearsing before the big night, according to Youth Emergency Services. This year's lineup includes Melina Arroyo, Elizabeth Boyer, Maria Cade, Erin Clark, Tahnee Markussen, Gretchen McGill, Brian Moore, Jacquelyn Morrison and Brett Phelps, as reported by WOWT. Cade, a WOWT reporter, is among this year's competitors.
Dancers lean on their personal and professional networks — largely through social media — to drum up donations and awareness ahead of the competition, the nonprofit's website notes. Sponsorship levels for the fundraiser range from $1,500 to $20,000, and the event has run continuously since its founding in 2009.
A Nonprofit Rooted in Omaha for Decades
Youth Emergency Services has operated in Omaha for 52 years, focusing on youth homelessness alongside food insecurity, affordable housing and mental health support. The organization says it served about 1,300 young people up to age 24 across its programs last year. YES describes its mission as helping youth and young adults break the cycle of homelessness by creating goals, establishing stability and achieving self-sufficiency.
Beyond emergency shelter, the group's meal calendar helps provide hot meals to more than 25 young adults each day. YES has also launched a $17 million capital campaign for what it calls the YES House, and it runs an ongoing Wellness Wednesdays series aimed at mental health support, according to the organization.
Andy Saladino said the event aims to draw community attention to the cause, per WOWT's reporting. For those who can't attend in person, Dance for a Chance offers vote-only tickets, and the organization is accepting donations through Oct. 23.
Homelessness Pressures Mount Across the Metro
The fundraiser lands amid a worrying trend: unsheltered homelessness in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area has grown more since 2013 than in any other major U.S. metro area served by a federally funded homeless-aid organization, according to Nebraska Public Media. Overall homelessness, which includes people staying in shelters, has actually declined over the past dozen years, but shelter capacity for families and children remains limited even as both groups increase, the outlet reports.
Advocates say the rise in unsheltered homelessness has stretched local resources thin, and the Omaha metro has added relatively few housing options specifically built for homeless residents, per the same report. The Siena Francis House estimates about 6,000 people experience homelessness in Omaha every year, according to WOWT's earlier reporting. Threshold CoC Executive Director Jason Feldhaus told the station that the number of people living on the street rose from 49 in 2019 to 230 in 2023.
Research Points to Earlier Intervention
A report from Covenant House and the University of California, Berkeley, drawing on more than 400 interviews and survey responses, found that earlier guidance and intervention could make a difference for young people before they ever reach a shelter, according to the Omaha Daily Record. Respondents most commonly cited being kicked out of their family homes, running away, or leaving an unsafe living situation as reasons they first experienced homelessness.
Federal money has also started flowing toward prevention efforts in the metro. Threshold CoC was awarded about $8.5 million in federal funding over three years — $2.85 million annually — to target young people ages 16 to 24 in Douglas, Sarpy and Pottawattamie counties, according to the Nebraska Examiner. That grant, part of a broader $72 million HUD investment across 14 communities, can support rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, host homes, rental assistance, and health and financial literacy services.
Against that backdrop, Friday's event at The Astro offers a lower-stakes but tangible way for Omaha residents to pitch in. Whether cheering from the crowd or casting a vote online, attendees will be helping fund an organization that has spent more than five decades trying to catch young people before they fall through the cracks.
