Major events have a troubling history of encouraging cities to make homelessness less visible.
With the 2026 World Cup approaching, Dallas faced the same temptation.
But an important part of the city's response has focused on something more durable than simply moving encampments: moving people into housing.
The Street to Home initiative brought together the City of Dallas, Housing Forward, Downtown Dallas and other partners around an approach centered on outreach, housing navigation, rental assistance and supportive services.
The results downtown have been striking.
Housing Forward says daily street counts in downtown Dallas have declined 87% since September 2024.
Reporting by the Associated Press says roughly 2,000 people have been placed into permanent housing through the broader effort.
And the improvement isn't visible only in downtown.
Housing Forward reported in May that homelessness across Dallas and Collin counties had declined for the fifth consecutive year, with a 23% reduction over five years.
Those numbers don't prove that every part of the strategy worked equally well.
But they do suggest that something more substantial has occurred than simply moving tents out of sight.
The most important measure will come later: whether people who moved into housing remain housed.
That's the difference between temporarily changing what a downtown looks like and actually changing someone's circumstances.
Housing is harder than displacement. It is also potentially much more durable.