6 June 11 - 17, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents “has not yielded the kinds of results that we expected.” She added that the timing of the funds had reinforced the perception that major events lead to major homelessness crackdowns, even as Housing Forward offi- cials disputed that conclusion. “Business leaders all across town are saying this is FIFA cleanup money. It’s a kind of gross way to describe what’s happening, but that’s what they’re saying,” Mendelsohn said. “It’s the creation of a short-term illusion that an is- sue is solved or doesn’t exist. It’s about FIFA, that’s what this $10 million is really about.” Coordinating Enforcement L ast month, the Observer submitted public records requests to the city of Dallas and the Dallas Police Depart- ment asking for any documents, policies, email communications or memoranda that addressed homelessness outreach, enforce- ment or response related to the FIFA World Cup. No documents matched either search, we were told. Kevin Oden, Dallas’ director of Emer- gency Management and Crisis Response, partners with Housing Forward to help co- ordinate encampment cleanups through the Dallas street response team. At the end of April, he told reporters that he had “not been asked to do anything related to the FIFA sites. … We’re not going to make deci- sions based on who should or shouldn’t be in a [World Cup event] location.” Housing Forward, the street response team and the Dallas Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team operate like the three legs of a stool. Just one department be- ing off can cause things to topple over. And with the fluid nature of homelessness, it’s easy for things to get thrown off balance. For instance, an outreach worker could spend months warming someone up to the idea of accepting a shelter bed, only for po- lice to respond to a public hazard, such as a fire, and thwart that trust. “Just 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,” Kahn said. “It ultimately undermines our ability to get those folks off the street. And so that’s 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’s when we see problems.” Dallas police have ramped up homeless en- forcement over the last year under the leader- ship of Chief Daniel Comeaux, and city leaders have acknowledged that the crackdown has resulted in “coordination gaps” 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 Manage- ment and Crisis Response team that was ex- pected to oversee the process. Housing Forward had spent the six weeks prior pairing individuals living at the encampment known as “Coombs” with ser- vices, 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. In a statement to nonprofit news site The Lab Report, a police spokesperson said, “We value the partnership we have with Housing Forward and other stakeholders with the goal of sustainable pathways out of home- lessness, but we also have a responsibility to respond when public safety concerns, crimi- nal activity or legal violations happen.” That’s 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’t repeated, the stakes are especially high. A statement from the Dallas Police De- partment confirmed that the HOT team will “not [be] focusing on special encampments due to FIFA,” but rather will “continue [its] daily efforts of getting the homeless popula- tion off the streets.” Slow but Steady Outreach A t the second stop of the day, Sims finds success. She’s pulled over at an empty lot that overlooks an in-progress condo Unfair Park from p4 Emma Ruby Groups like Housing Forward reach out to homeless Dallasites to find them shelter.
