These Stories Will Shape Dallas in 2026

In some ways, 2025 felt like a wind-up that took 12 months. The incoming administration in Washington D.C. forced nonprofits and local governments to adjust their plans to adhere to new policies, financial and cultural, that changed how they operated. Funding streams dried up over time or vanished in a flash. It became very difficult to predict what would come the next month.

This instability was constant in the stories we reported last year. But the people doing the work stayed vigilant. In examining the topics we expect to have a significant impact on our city and region this coming year, we saw many decisions get made: Policymakers decided to ask voters to leave our public transit agency. Nonprofits settled on plans to keep afloat, keep doing the work, amid the unpredictability of Washington.

Neighborhoods harnessed the power of their residents to determine their future. Dallas’ city government has at least identified paths forward for housing and economic development—hoping it knows where they lead.

In 2025, we learned to live in the whiplash. Now a week into the new year, we’ll try to chart what will come in 2026. These are among the stories we plan on watching closely. — Matt Goodman

The Wheels on the Bus … May Stop

Dallas Area Rapid Transit has become a Rorschach test for urban planning. Depending on who’s talking, DART is either the region’s critical transit provider, one that has also benefited its partner cities by way of the economic development that has followed light rail stops, or a drain on its suburban members that is too expensive for the services it provides.

This conflict is at the heart of a yearslong push by a handful of suburbs that have sought to claw back the tax dollars they are statutorily obligated to provide to fund the service. After failing once again to persuade the Texas Legislature to act in last year’s session, five city councils—Irving, Plano, Farmers Branch, Highland Park, and University Park—have voted to hold elections asking their voters to exit the transit agency. If those voters choose to withdraw from DART, service would cease immediately but the cities would still be required to cover their debt and other long-term financial obligations, meaning it would take years to access their tax dollars and come up with their own public transit system, or systems, separate from DART.

Because DART was built as a regional transit provider, the friction between some of its member cities is a feature, not a bug. Dallas, for instance, receives more bus services because it accounts for most of its ridership. Light rail service has become an ever-expanding olive branch for the agency and its suburbs, and a recent study by researchers at the University of North Texas credits these stations with creating over $18 billion in direct economic impact over the past 25 years. Downtown Plano probably looks quite a bit different today without light rail.

The conversations happening in these city halls often focus more on municipal financing than the riders who use the service—the crux of the matter is a one-year analysis by the firm EY that found Plano and several other cities had paid for more than they received in services. (DART calls the report an incomplete picture—it’s only one year—that did not account for economic development or the just-launched Silver Line rail that shuttles passengers from Plano to DFW International Airport.)

The stakes are real. If DART goes away in these cities, the people who will suffer the most fall within the 63 percent of riders who say they make less than $50,000 a year. Half of its ridership reports taking a bus or train to and from work. These are people who have no other option. Next year’s May elections will tell us what they see in the ink blots. — Matt Goodman

The Downtown Conundrum

Tens of thousands of visitors, and likely more, will pour into North Texas for the World Cup in June. More than 2,000 media outlets will head to downtown Dallas, where the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center is hosting the International Broadcast Center.

Ahead of the influx, Dallas’ law enforcement officials joined business leaders and the nonprofit Downtown Dallas Inc. to drill down on safety and quality of life concerns in the central business district. The campaign, dubbed “Safe in the City,” directed the Dallas Police Department to consider a new command station downtown and allocate 35 more patrol officers there. 

But downtown has more to worry about than looking bright and shiny for the World Cup. AT&T announced Monday that it would move from its home at Whitacre Tower to a new global headquarters in Plano, the former home of Ross Perot’s Electronic Data Systems. Employees will begin moving to the planned 54 acre property in mid-2028, according to CEO John Stankey. It is choosing a sprawling suburban corporate campus over a downtown tower, despite recently spending about $100 million on the adjacent AT&T Discovery District with its enormous video board and food hall.

Downtown Dallas Inc. projected property values here would plummet 30 percent with the departure of AT&T, one of the region’s largest employers and a downtown anchor. Mayor Eric Johnson and City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert presented AT&T’s exit as an opportunity to explore new possibilities. Tolbert’s staff is also preparing an analysis for the City Council that could end with the demolition of City Hall just a few blocks away. While neighboring Uptown is booming just north with growth, downtown is very much in flux.

As part of “Safe in the City,” Dallas aimed to raise police staffing levels downtown to 130 patrol cops—the neighborhood’s highest in a decade. (That excludes private security, code enforcement, and DART cops.) By the end of 2025, 121 officers were assigned there, and the department was still looking for a site for a dedicated physical station, according to police spokesperson Corbin Rubinson.

Another goal was to reduce homelessness through an initiative dubbed “Street to Home,” which aims to find stable housing for unhoused people. Housing Forward, the nonprofit overseeing the program locally, said this plan contributed to a 25 percent drop in unsheltered homelessness in Dallas County from 2021 to 2024. City officials banned sleeping on downtown streets and ramped up efforts to disrupt their gatherings. Dallas police also implemented a homeless outreach team, six officers who clear encampments citywide and offer unhoused people resources.

What are next steps for these campaigns, and can they be sustained in the long-term? What will be the fall-out of AT&T’s departure? The World Cup will be a six-week pressure test. And the world’s cameras will be here to capture it all. — Kelli Smith

Less Money and More Uncertainty for Nonprofits

Almost a year after the bottom fell out of the federal safety net, North Texas nonprofits entered 2026 exhausted by months of disruptions and uncertainties but strengthened by the experience of navigating the threats. Most recently, nonprofits have coped with the aftermath of the 43-day government shutdown, which ended Nov. 15 but has left many still playing catch-up.

Nonprofits aren’t the only community helpers feeling the squeeze. Neighborhood leaders like Oak Cliff’s Toni Johnson, who networks with every available local resource to make sure families in the Roosevelt High School area don’t go hungry, feel the pressure to do more.

They’ll do so while navigating the compliance changes to food stamp benefits mandated as part of last year’s tax-and-spending legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The SNAP cuts, the most significant to the social services system in decades, will kick millions out of the nation’s largest anti-hunger program early this year.

Trisha Cunningham, president and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank, says the challenge is twofold: SNAP recipients need additional assistance because their food is not going as far. New and complex work rules mean, for instance, those ages 55 to 64 will need to provide proof of work or volunteer hours to receive the food benefits.

National experts forecast more funding cuts from the Trump administration in 2026, which means other sources, such as private donors, foundations, and local or state governments, will be asked to fill in. In turn, the hot competition for ever-limited funds will get even more fiery.

Among those most in touch with these realities are senior staff members at Bridgespan, a global Boston-based consulting firm for nonprofits, foundations, and investors. “I wish I could say we all know what's coming and now you just have to act, but I don't think that's true,” says Bridgespan’s Preeta Nayak, who advises nonprofit leaders across the country. She says the uncertainty lies both in potential federal policy changes and increased costs that limit the resources nonprofits can deploy.

The silver lining, she says, is that nonprofit leaders put in the work in 2025 to plan for various contingencies. “Many organizations will be in a little bit of a wait-and-see mode on some elements of their work,” she says.

“At the same time, the nonprofits are being asked to do more with, quite frankly, a lot less, including a lot less certainty around their futures,” says Tonyel Edwards, a senior member of Bridgespan who works with investors and nonprofits. “So that instability, I think, continues to exist.”

Much of Edwards’ work is in Texas, and while she sees understandable fatigue within nonprofit leadership, that’s not the case among donors. “There's a real desire among donors to come together and find a path forward.” — Sharon Grigsby

Will Violence Continue to Drop?

Dallas ended 2025 with a fifth consecutive yearly decline in violent crime. Police reported 141 murders last year, the city’s lowest tally since the 136 recorded in 2015. That’s 43 fewer people slain in our city than in 2024, according to police data, a very different story from five years ago, when violent crime dominated headlines and spurred a former police chief to ask for help from state troopers.

The drop coincides with national reductions in violence. But crime is fickle, and the police department will still have to work hard to maintain the downward trend. 

In 2025, the City Council approved a $337,305 contract with the University of Texas at San Antonio for three more years of a data-driven violence reduction plan that has received national acclaim. It pairs social services and infrastructure improvements with higher enforcement in small pockets of the city with the most violence. 

Sustaining change is a challenge, as evidenced by fluctuating crime statistics at high-profile locations like the Volara Apartments—a 480-unit complex in east Oak Cliff that has undergone four years of police intervention and is in need of more.

Dallas police Chief Daniel Comeaux has chosen to delegate implementation of the violence reduction plan to lower-ranking commanders, shifting away from the hyper-focus of his predecessor, Eddie Garcia, who was very much the public face of the response. Will that result in a change in priorities? How will it affect police response times? We’ll be watching closely in his second year on the job. — Kelli Smith

The True Housing Challenge: Protecting What We Have

The city of Dallas’ housing department saw some changes last year. Those included personnel: Following the retirement of housing director Cynthia Rogers-Ellickson, City Hall promoted Thor Erickson, the previous No. 2, to replace his boss and hired affordable housing developer James Armstrong as deputy director. The department was also reconstituted: A number of city operations, including housing and homelessness solutions, now make up the Office of Housing and Community Empowerment. The move saved some money, but City Manager Kim Tolbert said it was also about breaking down the silos between these related departments. 

Armstrong is the former CEO of the nonprofit Builders of Hope, which, among other things, has helped bring new affordable housing to West Dallas and is responsible for an anti-displacement toolkit report that aimed to get in front of the city’s growing affordability crisis in a few transitioning neighborhoods.

There are more renters than owners in Dallas. About 38 percent of the total units are owner-occupied while 52 percent are renter-occupied, according to CPAL’s Rental Housing Needs Assessment. 

While most of the headlines and public discussion are focused on creating new housing, the complicated reality is that much of Dallas’ affordable stock is concentrated in older units that aren’t protected from demolition once they’re sold. Ninety percent of the city’s rental units are not deed restricted, meaning there is no government covenant protecting them from being torn down and turned into something else. CPAL found that less than half—41 percent—are currently affordable to residents earning at or below 60 percent of the area’s median income. (“Affordable” generally means spending no more than one-third of your income on housing.) 

That’s a problem, considering the U.S. Census shows the three most common job types in the region have median wages of less than $45,000 a year, which is a little below the 60 percent threshold set by the federal government. 

The Builders of Hope report examined ways of protecting existing units that are affordable for low- and middle-income earners in neighborhoods like South Dallas, West Dallas, and Vickery Meadow and helping these residents stay in their homes, if they so wished. 

“We’ve got to find a way to both deal with production, more beds, more homes, and the preservation piece of making sure people can stay in their homes,” Armstrong said back in October.  

The city has some philanthropic wind at its back. Communities Foundation of Texas last year announced a $100 million fund to go toward affordable housing initiatives. Communities has vowed to give $50 million over the next five years and raise another $50 million over that same period. That plan has three tenets: policy formation, housing production, and preserving affordability. “That is a recognition that there is no one superhero,” Armstrong said after its announcement, in October. “That’s how you know when your city is really getting serious about solving problems.”

But city government will have a huge role in guiding that effort. The retooled housing team was set to brief a council committee in December about a new “framework” that ties together housing and homelessness goals. But that discussion got postponed due to infighting that broke quorum rules—sort of a long story—so all we have so far is a PowerPoint presentation detailing its goals. Like the displacement toolkit, the framework advises targeting specific neighborhoods and makes preservation through a variety of city programs a key goal.

While new construction is important, City Hall has signaled its intention to find ways to preserve the affordable housing we already have. We’ll get more clarity on how it plans to solve this complicated math problem soon. — Matt Goodman

Health or Higher Prices

Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the U.S., and last year’s expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that made insurance more affordable to more earners is expected to exacerbate the problem. 

The fight over these tax credits was at the heart of the 43-day federal government shutdown, which became the longest in American history. While the government reopened in November, Congress failed to extend the subsidies, meaning higher premiums are now a reality.

The end of the enhanced subsidies coincided with the new federal tax and spending law, which includes an estimated $1 trillion reduction to Medicaid—the health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans—over the next decade. Most of the federal cuts won’t begin until 2027, but preparations are already underway.

Rural clinics will likely suffer the greatest blows from these changes, but urban hospitals are expecting strain and tough decisions of their own. Dallas County’s Parkland Health projected a $130 million loss this year from cuts to a federal program that compensates hospitals with a large share of Medicaid and uninsured patients. The health system’s financial officials have acknowledged they’ll need to adjust how Parkland operates in light of these changes.

This year will be a critical test of resilience for the state’s hospital and clinic infrastructure. It’ll likely force many families to evaluate their budgets as insurance becomes less affordable for a large swath of Texas’ population. We’ll be keeping tabs on the trickle-down effect on families. — Kelli Smith

Mental Illness at the County Jail

No local institution needs help more than Dallas County’s jail, which teetered precariously close to its 7,100 capacity through much of 2025. Among the biggest factors in the overcrowding crisis is the jail’s double-duty role as the county’s largest holding tank for individuals with some form of mental illness. In 2024, 57 percent of those booked into a cell had a history of receiving state-funded mental health services within the previous three years, according to the Dallas County Criminal Justice Department. 

As Dallas County commissioners search for solutions in 2026, officials and nonprofits will continue to test several strategies that showed good initial results last year. The DA’s Mental Health Division partnered with Metrocare, the county’s largest provider of mental health services, to create a critical time intervention team of case workers and peer specialists that allows assistant DAs to offer more offenders pre-trial intervention agreements. When the federal grant that funded the partnership ran out in September, commissioners were sufficiently pleased with the pilot program results to OK $600,000 from the county’s share of the opioid abatement settlement to continue the work this year. 

In November, commissioners also approved a request from the Austin Street Center, which provides homeless services, to apply for grant funding to expand its trial program connecting those accused of misdemeanor criminal trespass with mental health help—and keep them out of jail. County Commissioner Andrew Sommerman, among those who traveled to Miami last year to look into initiatives that have diverted tens of thousands of people away from jail, will push this year for the Austin Street pilot to expand into the first of four deflection centers in the county.

Behavioral health care agency Homeward Bound, which was the county’s original deflection-center partner and continues to take police drop-offs, has expanded to partner with QuikTrip to create its own team that responds to calls on the chain’s properties. 

None of these innovations addresses the jail’s systemic challenges, but until commissioners find those big-picture solutions, it’s significant that nonprofits are helping to fill gaps for the most vulnerable among the jail population. — Sharon Grigsby

Matt Goodman is the co-founder and editor of The Lab Report. [email protected]. Sharon Grigsby is the co-founder and senior staff writer. [email protected]. Kelli Smith is the staff writer. [email protected].

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The Lab Report Dallas is a local journalism project published by the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL). Its newsroom operates with editorial independence.

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