 Countability of the homology of an open Euclidean subset

Every open subset $U\subseteq {\mathbb{R}}^N$ is the directed union of finite unions of closed rational cubes contained in $U$. Every compact subset of $U$ lies in one such finite polyhedron, whose homology is finitely generated. The homology of a directed union therefore expresses each $H_i(U;\mathbb{Z})$ as a direct limit over a countable family of countable groups, so it is countable.