Cherokee County, GA Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Section 38-85 defines "camp" as residing in or using a public street, sidewalk, or park for primary living accommodations, including erecting tents or temporary shelters, sleeping in one spot for a prolonged period, or regularly cooking meals. "Storing personal property" covers leaving effects such as bedrolls, cookware, or backpacks unattended for a substantial prolonged length of time, though it does not reach parked bicycles. Subsection (b) bars camping or storing property in any county-owned public park unless specifically authorized; subsection (c) bars camping, sleeping, storing property, sitting, or lying down on any public street, sidewalk, bench, parking lot, or median; and subsection (d) bars the same conduct on other public property where it interferes with building ingress or egress.

Enforcement is graduated: subsection (e) says no one may be arrested until they have first received an oral or written warning to stop, and only failure to comply after that warning exposes them to arrest. The section then carves out ten specific exceptions, including medical emergencies, wheelchair users on sidewalks, parade and sidewalk-cafe patrons, people at festivals or concerts, those using publicly supplied benches, bus-zone waiters, orderly ticket or building-entry lines, and children asleep in strollers or being carried.