street outreach workers<\/a> aren\u2019t always welcome at the encampments they aim to serve. Admittedly, she was \u201cpretty grouchy\u201d for the couple of days last summer that her air conditioning went out; imagine how you\u2019d feel if you could never get out of the heat.\u00a0<\/p>\nSign up for the This Week\u2019s Top Stories newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n
THANK YOU!<\/p>\n
You’re all set.<\/p>\n
CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
She pulls over at an empty lot, having somehow spotted a camouflaged pile of belongings on the back corner of the land. A chair, a tarp and a shopping cart holding bric-a-brac are tucked away, overgrown vines shrouding the proof of life. Sims has noticed the collection before, and she thinks someone may be living here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHello!\u201d She calls out as a trio of social workers tramps across the tall grass ahead of her. No one emerges from the shaded alcove, but the team agrees the site looks lived in. After a few more calls, Sims makes a note in her phone and vows to come back later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole population of our [unhoused] neighbors is becoming more transient,\u201d Sims says, which makes it hard to know who is living where or to find a person who may already be working with one of the organizations that Housing Forward oversees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Around Fair Park, specifically, the encampments that have formed are \u201cless traditional\u201d than the tent villages that pop up under overpasses or in wooded areas in other parts of the city. You\u2019re more likely to find one or two people looking for shade. Most hope to be left alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just trying to find a space to stay safe and survive out here,\u201d Sims says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If history is any indication, these homeless community members are the most likely to be affected when the FIFA World Cup lands in Dallas. For decades, major events like the World Cup or the Super Bowl have inspired cities to handle the homeless with temporary off-site shelters or bulldozers. It was the latter that disrupted an encampment in Dallas when the World Cup came to town in 1994.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But those strategies don\u2019t work in permanently reducing street homelessness, said Sarah Kahn, president and CEO of Housing Forward. Instead, they result in millions of dollars spent to move homeless people out of sight for a few weeks, only to throw them back onto the streets when the games are over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the kind of short-term problem-solving that Housing Forward wants to avoid. So it\u2019s operating like business-as-usual-ish, building by-name inventory lists and working to move one person at a time into housing while accelerating outreach in areas like Fair Park, which will be especially relevant during the month of matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a system that\u2019s built for this moment,\u201d Kahn said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to invest in temporary fixes. \u2026 Our community made a commitment to invest in long-term solutions that actually reduce street homelessness, that allow us to see results even after the games are finished. And that was really important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Dallas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dallas-Observer-01_24_2020-Homeless-Count_Dylan-Hollingsworth36.jpg\")
Large events like the FIFA World Cup can often lead to quick fixes for homelessness , only for a rebounded population after the games<\/p>\n
Temporary fixes\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was May 1994 when Dallas turned to bulldozers to prepare for the World Cup matches to be played at the Cotton Bowl. Around 200 people were cleared out from under Interstate 45, The Dallas Morning News reported, and many were arrested for sleeping outdoors. The encampment site was less than a mile from where games would be played.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city for the clearing, but Dallas won on appeal. The playbook has been run time and again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1996, Atlanta officials arrested 9,000 homeless people in the lead-up to the Olympics. In 2006, a Detroit homeless organization hosted a three-day Super Bowl-themed watch party that ended when the game clock hit zero as a way to get the homeless off the city\u2019s streets. In 2022, Los Angeles aggressively cleared out tent cities that officials believed would pose a \u201csafety issue\u201d to tourists in town for the Super Bowl.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps most egregious was Louisiana\u2019s handling of the 2025 Super Bowl. Before the game, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry allocated some $20 million to build a tent city 7 miles from the Superdome, where 200 homeless people living in the stadium\u2019s vicinity were relocated. The pop-up shelter was surrounded by barbed wire, faced plumbing and heating issues and failed to offer the \u201csupport for your new start\u201d that had been promised when relocation notices were first issued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those notices, which promised everything from three meals a day (plus snacks!), bedding, hygiene kits and laundry services, also warned that failing to comply with the relocation may result in \u201cenforcement actions or legal proceedings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Louisiana also sent state Wildlife and Fisheries and law enforcement officials in to clean up New Orleans encampments ahead of Taylor Swift\u2019s three-night Era\u2019s Tour stop in 2024.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a community member really wants to reduce the visibility of homelessness, then dollars have to be invested in a particular way to get that outcome,\u201d Kahn said. \u201cPutting people in a temporary shelter for four months is not going to get community members the result that they want.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first phase of Housing Forward\u2019s Street to Home initiative launched in summer 2024 and focused on assisting homeless people living in downtown Dallas. Over the course of 15 months, 2,070 homeless people living downtown were given medical care, partnered with addiction or mental health services as needed and given a permanent place to live. It\u2019s an extensive safety net, but one that ensures people aren\u2019t just moving back onto the streets after a few nights at a shelter. Housing Forward cites sustained reductions in violent crime downtown as evidence that the process worked.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phase two began in March of this year, and outreach workers are aiming to replicate those results citywide for 1,200 homeless neighbors by the spring of 2027. (The 2026 point-in-time count, a federally mandated annual survey that inventories the number of people sleeping on a city\u2019s streets on a given night, identified just over 3,513 unsheltered people in Dallas.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Housing Forward knew that the launch of phase two would coincide with the start of the World Cup, but Kahn said that it has had little bearing on the organization\u2019s approach to resolving homelessness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCities all across the country are under immense pressure to address street homelessness, FIFA or no FIFA,\u201d Kahn said. \u201cAt the end of the day, in the absence of creating permanent pathways off the street for individuals, we\u2019re just moving them from block to block, from one neighborhood to the next neighborhood without bringing about any change.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, politics is politics. Last December, City Council approved a $10 million contract to help support phase two, but not all the council members were convinced that the street-to-home initiative was working.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Council member Cara Mendelsohn accused city staff of encouraging the council to \u201cthrow more money\u201d at a process that \u201chas not yielded the kinds of results that we expected.\u201d She added that the timing of the funds had reinforced the perception that major events lead to major homelessness crackdowns, even as Housing Forward officials disputed that conclusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBusiness leaders all across town are saying this is FIFA cleanup money. It\u2019s a kind of gross way to describe what\u2019s happening, but that\u2019s what they\u2019re saying,\u201d Mendelsohn said. \u201cIt\u2019s the creation of a short-term illusion that an issue is solved or doesn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s about FIFA, that\u2019s what this $10 million is really about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coordinating enforcement\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last month, the Observer submitted public records requests to the city of Dallas and the Dallas Police Department asking for any documents, policies, email communications or memoranda that addressed homelessness outreach, enforcement or response related to the FIFA World Cup. No documents matched either search, we were told.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kevin Oden, Dallas\u2019 director of Emergency Management and Crisis Response, partners with Housing Forward to help coordinate encampment cleanups through the Dallas street response team. At the end of April, he told reporters that he had \u201cnot been asked to do anything related to the FIFA sites. \u2026 We\u2019re not going to make decisions based on who should or shouldn\u2019t be in a [World Cup event] location.\u201d<\/p>\n
Housing Forward, the street response team and the Dallas Police Department\u2019s Homeless Outreach Team operate like the three legs of a stool. Just one department being off can cause things to topple over. And with the fluid nature of homelessness, it\u2019s easy for things to get thrown off balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For instance, an outreach worker could spend months warming someone up to the idea of accepting a shelter bed, only for police to respond to a public hazard, such as a fire, and thwart that trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust coming in and arresting people really only results in people cycling in and out of jail and hospitals at a very high cost to both the individual and the community,\u201d Kahn said. \u201cIt ultimately undermines our ability to get those folks off the street. And so that\u2019s why we want to always pair enforcement with these strategies that support getting people off the street. When one is used without the other, that\u2019s when we see problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dallas police have ramped up homeless enforcement over the last year under the leadership of Chief Daniel Comeaux, and city leaders have acknowledged that the crackdown has resulted in \u201ccoordination gaps\u201d from time to time. Last month, police officers walked into a South Dallas encampment hours before a clearing of the site had been scheduled to take place, and without the Emergency Management and Crisis Response team that was expected to oversee the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Housing Forward had spent the six weeks prior pairing individuals living at the encampment known as \u201cCoombs\u201d with services, resulting in 47 getting placed into housing. Still, more than 20 people were at the encampment when DPD arrived, and they were arrested as bulldozers worked their way across the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a statement to nonprofit news site The Lab Report, a police spokesperson said, \u201cWe value the partnership we have with Housing Forward and other stakeholders with the goal of sustainable pathways out of homelessness, but we also have a responsibility to respond when public safety concerns, criminal activity or legal violations happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a slippery slope; public safety and public health were the reasons officials gave for the bulldozing in 1994. And with as much work as Housing Forward has put in to make sure that history isn\u2019t repeated, the stakes are especially high.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A statement from the Dallas Police Department confirmed that the HOT team will \u201cnot [be] focusing on special encampments due to FIFA,\u201d but rather will \u201ccontinue [its] daily efforts of getting the homeless population off the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Dallas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0565.jpg\")
Groups like Housing Forward reach out to homeless Dallasites to find them shelter.<\/p>\n
Slow but steady outreach\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the second stop of the day, Sims finds success.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She\u2019s pulled over at an empty lot that overlooks an in-progress condo build. Tucked behind the development but visible from this side of the street is a large tent. The same process as before follows: The group of outreach workers crosses the yard, yelling hellos. This time, a woman emerges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She is short and tanned, wearing a billowing pair of jean shorts that are held up by a belt. A bedazzled canister of pepper spray hangs from a pant loop. The woman has no issue sharing her name with Sims, but for this article, she will be referred to by the initial J.\u00a0<\/p>\n
J tells Sims that her husband is inside the tent sleeping and that the two have been homeless for years. They lived in Dallas before the pandemic and came back last fall. On one of their first nights back in town, their wallets and IDs were stolen while they slept. Sims begins typing J\u2019s name into a system called HMIS, which is used by shelters, law enforcement, hospitals, housing providers and social workers to keep tabs on anyone who has previously \u201ctouched\u201d the system and coordinate resources. She\u2019s able to pull up evidence that the couple stayed at Austin Street shelter prior to COVID, and she begins logging their updated needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCode compliance could be nicer than just always threatening to throw us in jail,\u201d says J, who adds that the condo developer bought them the tent and pays them a small stipend to live on the property and scare off copper thieves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sims answers that property owner permission doesn\u2019t make outdoor camping allowable under code compliance or law enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
J is immediately open to housing when Sims asks, but says she won\u2019t go to a shelter. Her husband suffers from night terrors, and because shelters segregate sleeping quarters by gender, she wouldn\u2019t be there to comfort him. Sims nods along and begins making calls to track down J\u2019s birth certificate, which was stolen as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019all seem like good, responsible neighbors,\u201d Sims says, and J answers: \u201cWe do try.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be transparent that things might start to move pretty quickly here,\u201d says Sims, who is scrolling through registries and landlord contacts and available unit lists.<\/p>\n
J clasps her hands in front of her waist and says, \u201cI\u2019m OK with that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It takes around 20 minutes to get J\u2019s details uploaded into the system. In that time, her birth certificate is ordered, and a social worker is assigned to her and her husband\u2019s case. Sims is certain that the outreach team will be able to get J into housing within a couple of weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kahn said that 95% of homless individuals who are offered interventions that \u201csupport that person to move back into housing and stability\u201d ultimately say yes to the outreach. Many of those who say no have complex mental health or substance abuse needs, and the team bands together behavioral health experts, hospitals, law enforcement, outreach workers and mental health facilities to develop specialized plans for those individuals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPersistent engagement\u201d can be key, as some people see what Sims\u2019 team is offering as too good to be true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After visiting J, the team speaks with a hesitant male-female duo who say they are hanging out at a South Dallas structure tucked into the foliage but sleep at a shelter. Next is a man whose tent is within spitting distance of the Music Hall at Fair Park. He is quiet and reluctant to talk. Like J, he says the property owners allow him to be there. Again, Sims warns that that may not matter to enforcement teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, there is a man sleeping under an Interstate 30 entrance ramp. A green tarp hides him from view, and as Sims approaches, he pokes only the top of his head out of the shelter. A trio of outreach workers speaks with him for a few minutes, and finally, he accepts a package of hygiene products.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not super interested,\u201d Sims says later as she walks back to her car. She knows the man, who can\u2019t be older than 30. This underpass is used for parking during the State Fair of Texas, and she spoke to him last fall while visiting with her family. It was a no then, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Someone from the outreach team will return in a couple of days to try again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe part that I try to make clear to people is that I\u2019m from this community, I live in this community, and I\u2019m not OK with people sleeping outside,\u201d Sims said. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like [anyone] should think this is the only option available to [them].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The map on Hannah Sims\u2019 phone divides the blocks surrounding Fair Park into four quadrants. Her colleagues hover…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3084,18507,102,104,103,3222,65188],"class_list":["post-330626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-city-hall","tag-cover-story","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-housing","tag-quest-for-the-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}