For the first half of this year, the FIFA World Cup was the most anticipated global event of the year. In Atlanta, the spotlight was especially bright. Our past shortcoming became the point of comparison, and many watched to see how we’d care for our own neighbors before welcoming visitors from across the globe.
Fortunately, we did not shrink under that pressure. Atlanta rose to the occasion. Why? Because well before the World Cup, a collective of nonprofits, city officials, and other organizations had already answered the call to collaborate and invest more deeply in community.
As a city, we were already laying the foundation to create a scalable model to address homelessness city-wide through initiatives like Lift 1.0, Lift 2.0., and Downtown Rising.
Lifting and Rising
The Lift program was a flagship rapid rehousing initiative launched by the city of Atlanta and Partners for HOME in 2020 to combat homelessness during COVID-19. Lift 1.0 and Lift 2.0 established an important foundation for Atlanta’s evolving response to unsheltered homelessness. These programs underscored the continued need for supportive resources such as food assistance, Social Security benefits navigation, veteran services, mental health support, and other stabilization services that help individuals sustain housing and achieve long-term stability.
Atlanta Rising built on that framework as a comprehensive strategy. This initiative created a more coordinated and intentional model for addressing homelessness, housing instability, and long-term client success across Atlanta. Through Downtown Rising, on of the four pillars of the strategy, this approach has a dedicated focus on the unhoused community in Downtown Atlanta.
Under the Global Spotlight
For Atlanta, The World Cup was an opportunity to showcase unprecedented collaboration between nonprofit organizations, city and regional governments, transit partners, healthcare providers, behavioral health organizations, philanthropy, and the private sector. As Mayor Dickens often says, “Atlanta is a group project.” The World Cup gave our city a chance to put that idea into action by testing our model on a large scale.
Together, we created a FIFA-focused subsegment of Downtown Rising – creating specific zones to ensure outreach services to our unhoused neighbors could continue. Atlanta’s World Cup response united six organizations to collectively address homelessness during the major global event. Hope Atlanta, Urban Alchemy, Mend Culture, SafeHouse Outreach, Gateway Center, and Partners for HOME all played a significant role in that effort by expanding our Downtown Rising outreach into Fan Fest spaces.
Community-Wide Results
Collectively, the agencies completed:
- 502 outreach engagements
- 468 unduplicated shelter placements
- 243 unduplicated shelter transports
These results demonstrate what is possible when partners align around a shared, community-wide strategy. By combining resources, coordinating outreach, and acting with urgency, Atlanta moved hundreds of unhoused neighbors toward shelter, services, and greater stability.
Beyond the numbers, the clearest evidence of impact came through moments on the ground. One outreach moment brought the purpose of this work into clear focus. During FIFA outreach downtown, Hope Atlanta’s team encountered a pregnant young woman who shared that she was experiencing domestic violence and wanted to leave but did not know where to turn. Because the person she identified as unsafe was nearby, outreach staff worked carefully and collaboratively to create a safe opportunity for her to step away. With coordination and expertise from the team and support from law enforcement on site, she was safely transported by our outreach van to an emergency shelter – where her safety could be guaranteed and she could connect with a case manager and begin accessing prenatal care.
Forward, Together
Homelessness remains one of Atlanta’s most pressing challenges, and while FIFA helped accelerate collaboration and investment, the work is far from over. Fortunately, the systems, partnerships, and lessons developed over the past year will not end with the tournament – but they are now our blueprint for the future.
We have learned what works, we have built stronger partnerships, and now we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to sustain that momentum.
Hope Atlanta
Beyond the matches, the World Cup highlighted a growing challenge in the homelessness response system: homelessness at airports. Airports can often provide safety, transit access, climate control, and basic amenities for people experiencing homelessness. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has become a recurring point of refuge for individuals who may not be connected to traditional shelter options and need more coordinated, person-centered pathways to housing and services.
To address these gaps, Hope Atlanta has convened a cross-sector group that includes the City of Atlanta, the Mayor’s Office, MARTA, Hartsfield-Jackson International Atlanta Airport, Atlanta Police Department, Partners for HOME, and Gateway Center to collaboratively address homelessness in this unique environment. With funding from The Home Depot Foundation through the Georgia Center for Nonprofit’s Building Collaborative Network grant, this work is moving from informal coordination toward a structured, systems-level response to homelessness at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
In Atlanta, we know the real measure of success will not be how we responded during the World Cup, but whether we continue investing in coordinated, long-term solutions that help people move from homelessness to stability.
Visit HopeAtlanta.org to learn more and find ways to get involved!
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