Downtown Rising, Washington Cracking Down: Atlanta’s Homelessness Crossroads
As one of the eleven American host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Atlanta is preparing for an influx of over 300,000 visitors next year. Among investments in public safety, infrastructure, and transportation around downtown and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the city recently announced a $212 million “Downtown Rising” initiative aimed at housing over 400 people in the area currently living on the streets. Managed by the nonprofit Partners for HOME, the organization plans to construct 500 rapid-build units and help downtown homeless populations obtain documentation to transition to permanent housing.
On the surface, the partnership appears to be a promising and important first step in addressing Atlanta’s ever-growing housing crisis. But the rollout comes as more than 200,000 affordable housing units have vanished across the city in the past five years while the cost of living continues to rise. Since 2010, the average rent cost has increased by 65%, and home prices have doubled. These spikes in unaffordability have also led to increases in homelessness rates. This has prompted more encampment sweeps, including one in January near Ebenezer Baptist Church that killed 46-year-old Cornelius Taylor, which have since raised doubts about whether the city’s actions match its rhetoric.
Atlanta’s approach also collides with shifting national politics. President Trump’s recent executive orders to forcibly remove homeless encampments in major U.S. cities starkly contrast with the housing-first model of Downtown Rising. One July order ended federal support for “housing-first” programs, instead encouraging governments to move homeless populations into loosely defined “long-term institutional settings.”
Local leaders, including Mayor Andre Dickens and Partners for HOME CEO Cathryn Vassell, have voiced opposition to Trump’s statements and insist the city will stay the course in advocating for a housing-first approach. Still, Dickens acknowledged that Atlanta relies heavily on federal funds to support its homeless residents. As the city pushes the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for more resources, Trump’s actions threaten to undercut Atlanta’s ability to follow through on its plans. The uncertainty raises a key tension: can Atlanta maintain its housing-first approach without consistent federal partnership?
Moreover, this tourism-driven push for housing feels familiar to many Atlantans, ashe city has long used major sporting events to advance urban development goals. Over the past three decades, Atlanta has hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics, three Super Bowls, two College Football National Championships, three NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Fours, and soon, the World Cup. These events have drawn hundreds of thousands of spectators downtown, often to areas where many of Atlanta’s 3,000 homeless residents live.
The current lead up to the World Cup shows many parallels to Atlanta’s 1996 Olympics During preparations for the Games, the city conducted homeless encampment sweeps, demolished large portions of downtown public housing, and arrested 9,000 people living on the street in the months leading up to the opening ceremonies. The most symbolic act was the razing of Techwood Homes, the first New Deal public housing project in the nation, replacing the historic project with athlete housing that later became Georgia Tech dorms. In total, nearly 30,000 Atlantans were displaced in the name of “revitalization.”
Today’s strategy differs in rhetoric, if not urgency. Partners for HOME emphasizes that Downtown Rising is intended to create permanent supportive housing rather than temporary clearances. As Vassell explained, “All of the work that we’re doing is geared to sustain well beyond the World Cup. That is the goal.” Mayor Dickens’ press secretary Michael Smith further echoed this sentiment in a recent statement, asserting that Downtown Rising would “last well beyond one single event.”
Still, critics argue that the compressed timeline of the World Cup risks repeating a familiar cycle: ambitious promises paired with extreme actions, with little long-term follow-up. The city’s urgency to “clean up” downtown before next July could cause officials to fall into the growing trend of law enforcement-focused approaches, like forceful sweeps and arrests. Michael Collins, the Senior Director of Color of Change, recently voiced concern that homeless individuals who have trouble relocating from downtown could end up in the Fulton County Jail.
These concerns fall in line with broader trends in how the city has addressed homelessness in the past. Over the past decade, Atlanta has seen the rise of a “revolving jail door” where homeless individuals are caught in a constant cycle of arrest and detainment for low-level offenses, like trespassing. In 2022, 12.5% of inmates in Atlanta city jails were experiencing homelessness, despite only making up 0.4% of the city’s population. This disproportionate representation indicates that law enforcement has frequently served as a means of controlling public space. In Atlanta, this dynamic has created a cyclical relationship between homelessness and incarceration that could complicate efforts to implement housing-first models. As initiatives such as Downtown Rising take shape, this history underscores the challenges the city faces in translating equity-oriented rhetoric into lasting change.
With less than a year before kickoff, Atlanta stands at a crossroads. On one side lies the opportunity to showcase a new model of housing-first urban policy and resist President Trump’s criminalization approach. On the other side, history suggests that mega-events in Atlanta often leave behind legacies of forced displacement. This pattern, combined with a rise in anti-homeless federal policy, could make it difficult for Downtown Rising to follow through on its mission.
The city’s navigation of the next 12 months will determine whether the initiative becomes a genuine turning point or simply another chapter in Atlanta’s long history of development-for-the-spectacle. The city’s past reveals how promises of inclusivity can collapse under the weight of political expedience and corporate influence, but this moment offers a chance to break from the status quo. If city leaders leverage World Cup investments for the long term, Atlanta could implement the housing-first model as a lasting policy change rather than merely a branding strategy. Otherwise, the cycle of event-driven displacement may once again define the city’s legacy.