Downtown Dallas’ homeless count fell 79% from a year earlier and crime dropped 47% in September, marking substantial progress on two persistent downtown problems, according to reports provided to The Dallas Express.
The latest homeless survey counted 22 people, the sixth-lowest result in the initiative’s history. The crime comparison recorded 171 offenses, down from 323 a year earlier, but still nearly eight times downtown Fort Worth’s total of 22.
The findings appear in September’s Dallas CBD Homeless Survey and Downtown Crime Comparison, obtained by The Dallas Express.
Homeless count approaches historic lows
Survey participants counted 22 people in Dallas’ central business district on September 28, compared with 103 on September 12, 2025. The survey began at 10:05 a.m. in partly cloudy conditions with a temperature of 82 degrees.
The latest count was about 83% below the initiative’s reported historical average of 128 and far below its peak of 411 on February 3, 2024.
All seven of the lowest counts in the survey’s history occurred in 2026. May produced the lowest result, 12, followed by counts of 18 in March and August, 20 in July and 21 in June. September’s 22 ranked sixth, followed by April’s 25.
September did increase by four people from August, but remained well below the triple-digit counts that appeared repeatedly in earlier surveys.
Six of the 22 people, about 27%, were in the two sectors immediately adjacent to The Bridge homeless shelter, according to the accompanying update. The other 16 were across seven sectors.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Housing Forward and other partners have coordinated outreach and housing efforts to reduce street homelessness downtown.
The Safe in the City coalition reported in a May 21 announcement that its Street to Home effort had moved more than 287 people into permanent housing, with a retention rate above 90%.
The survey provides a snapshot of people observed downtown. It does not count homelessness citywide or establish where each person no longer present in the survey went.
Crime falls across all three major categories
Dallas’ September crime total declined from 323 to 171 across the categories included in the comparison. The accompanying update identifies the source of the Dallas figures as the city’s Crime Analytics Dashboard.
Violent crimes fell 63%, from 19 to seven. Robberies dropped from six to two, aggravated assaults from eight to four, and murders from two to zero.
The report’s nonviolent-crime category declined 46%, from 249 to 135. Motor vehicle thefts fell from 38 to nine, a 76% decrease, while thefts from vehicles dropped from 57 to 20.
Crimes against society, which include drug and weapons offenses, declined 47%, from 55 to 29. That category remained 43% higher for January through September, however, at 436 compared with 305 a year earlier.
Overall, Dallas’ year-to-date crime total fell 9%, from 2,508 to 2,283, while violent crime declined 18%, from 153 to 125.
The Dallas Express previously reported on Downtown Dallas Inc.’s account of increased police presence and coordinated outreach accompanying the downtown improvements.
A substantial crime gap with Fort Worth remains
Downtown Fort Worth also improved in September, recording 22 offenses compared with 37 a year earlier, a 41% decline. Dallas’ 171 offenses amounted to about 7.8 times Fort Worth’s total.
For January through September, the comparison tallied 2,283 offenses in Dallas and 271 in Fort Worth, about 8.4 times as many. Violent-crime totals were 125 and nine, respectively.
The figures compare raw counts rather than population-adjusted rates. Dallas’ downtown covers 1.40 square miles, compared with Fort Worth’s 0.92. The accompanying update estimates their residential populations at roughly 16,000 and 8,000, respectively.
The report excludes several offense categories that do not appear in both cities’ datasets and uses estimates for Fort Worth sex-crime categories. Those limitations affect the comparison, which does not measure an individual’s relative risk of becoming a crime victim.
