The homeless population is down nearly 5% from last year in Dallas and Collin counties, Housing Forward announced in the 2025 State of Homelessness Address.
Volunteers counted 3,541 homeless people in an annual point-in-time count over one night in January, compared with 3,718 people last year.
Since last summer, 257 people have been removed from the streets of downtown Dallas and rehoused with integrated behavioral health care resources through the city of Dallas Street-to-Home initiative. Another 27 people with more severe and complicated mental health concerns were connected to higher levels of care and treatment facilities.
The initiative, in partnership with Downtown Dallas Inc., is part of a multipronged $30 million effort to connect unhoused residents to permanent housing and services such as rental help and mental health after an encampment is closed.
“I am very excited to announce that we are declaring an effective end to street homelessness in downtown Dallas,” said Housing Forward CEO Sarah Kahn during the event. “Now, let me be very clear, this does not mean that you are never going to see another person experiencing homelessness in our downtown core. What this means is that no one is living or sleeping downtown.”
Since 2021, Housing Forward, the agency tapped to lead the Dallas and Collin counties’ homelessness response, and All Neighbors Coalition, a collective of over 150 organizations working to solve homelessness, have seen a 28% reduction in unsheltered homelessness and have housed almost 16,000 individuals and families.
Housing Forward and its partners have used diversion as a tool to end homelessness. Diversion strategies aim to prevent individuals and families from entering emergency shelters by helping them find immediate housing alternatives. This approach addresses the root causes of housing loss and connects people with resources to maintain or regain housing.
About 3,000 households were diverted from shelters last year, said Kyla Rankin, the board chair of All Neighborhood Coalition.
Forming alliances with the North Texas Behavioral Authority and the Meadows Central Health Policy Institute has been key to providing stability and recovery and to getting people off the streets and into housing, Rankin said.
At the event on Tuesday at the Winspear Opera House, a discussion focused on lessons learned from the Street-to-Home initiative and the next steps to reduce homelessness.
Grant Moise, the chief executive officer of DallasNews Corporation and the publisher and president of The Dallas Morning News, moderated the . ists included Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, Matt Roberts, the chief operating officer of the North Texas Behavioral Authority, and Ikenna Mogbo, the chief housing officer at Metrocare Services.
Tolbert said that progress was being made to reduce homelessness, but more work needs to be done. This includes allocating funds and investments to continue addressing the issue.
“We were moving people around. We were chasing people around, and people were coming back to those areas, because there was not really a way out,” Tolbert said. “Now that we have made up this whole multiagency, everybody understands their role. There’s a lot of shared responsibility.”
Roberts shared an example of how the integrated communication between agencies has helped people in times of need.
He said during a review of a list of individuals, a team noticed a name of a man they had been seeking for over 45 days. The man had previously gone to a hospital but left before the team could reach him. Upon identifying him on the list, they quickly sent a team to engage. He did want help, but had difficulty navigating the process on his own. With , he was able to get itted to the hospital and receive the care he needed.
Peter Brodsky, chair of the Housing Forward Board, announced that he would resign by the end of the year and that Kelvin Walker, CEO of the Dallas Citizens Council, would take his place.
Peter Miller, president of Meadows Foundation, received a lifetime achievement award for his philanthropic work to reduce homelessness.