Dallas, TX Homelessness & Encampment Rules: LAMC §41.18 Encampment Rule (2026)

Under Dallas City Code Sec. 31-13(a), a person commits an offense if he sleeps or dozes in a street, alley, park, or other public place, or sleeps or dozes in a vacant lot adjoining a public street or highway. The ordinance dates to Ordinance No. 14971 and has not been repealed. Subsection (b) carves out a narrow defense: a person cannot be prosecuted for dozing on a vacant lot if he owns that lot or has the owner's consent to be there. That defense does not extend to sleeping in a street, alley, or park, so the core prohibition covers the classic public-space camping scenario city officers cite most: a person bedded down on a sidewalk, in a median, or under a highway overpass.

The section sits in Chapter 31, Article I (Offenses, Miscellaneous), next to Sec. 1, which separately bans erecting tents or other temporary shelters on designated city property such as City Hall Plaza, the convention center grounds, and the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library grounds. Sec. 31-13 is broader: it does not require a tent or structure, and it is not limited to a list of designated properties, so it reaches simple sleeping anywhere on a public street, alley, or park citywide. Dallas police enforcement of both provisions operates against the backdrop of the Texas Legislature's 2021 statewide camping ban (Texas Government Code Chapter 250), which directs cities to prohibit public camping or risk losing certain state funding; Sec. 31-13 predates that law by decades and continues to run alongside it as the city's own municipal offense.