Emotional journey for Atlanta's homeless as city races to house 400 people before the World Cup

Allen Hall, 71, poses for a photo in his room at a hotel in Atlanta, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, wearing a bracelet given to him by Cornelius Taylor, who died after he was crushed by a bulldozer at a homeless encampment in January. (AP Photo/Charlotte Kramon)

ATLANTA (AP) — Allen Hall called it a “very emotional experience” as he boarded a bus with more than 20 other former residents of an Atlanta homeless encampment where a close friend had been fatally injured earlier this year by a bulldozer that struck his tent.

Although the city and its partners secured housing by mid-July for everyone they thought lived in the downtown encampment along Old Wheat Street, Hall and seven others moved temporarily into a hotel funded by advocates.

“It was like something was changing for us, for real,” Hall said, recalling the day this summer when friends and acquaintances moved into apartments after spending years sleeping on sidewalks.