Some host cities are aiming to house, not arrest, homeless people ahead of the World Cup
ATLANTA (AP) — Just a mile from Atlanta's stadium, which will welcome tens of thousands of fans to World Cup games this month, dozens of people were camped out on a downtown sidewalk waiting for a homeless shelter to open.
Some slept in sleeping bags, face masks over their eyes to block out the afternoon sun. Others sat on the sidewalk eating from cereal boxes. Shoes lay scattered alongside empty mini-liquor bottles. A boom box blasted a Jay-Z song: "This can't be right, there's gotta be more."
Atlanta announced an ambitious plan last summer to end encampments and other street sleeping downtown ahead of the 39-day soccer spectacular that begins Thursday. Called Downtown Rising, the program said it has housed nearly 500 people. But the scene on a recent afternoon outside this shelter on Pryor Street was a visceral reminder that Atlanta has not reached everyone.
Atlanta is one of several of the cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico using the attention that comes with hosting the world's premier soccer tournament to address homelessness. Seattle announced a housing push and said it was using the World Cup to gauge its progress. Dallas said it was expanding a successful effort to house homeless people living downtown.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/host-cities-aiming-house-not-100451469.html
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