Dunwoody, GA Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Dunwoody's urban camping article, City Code §§ 24-41 through 24-46, defines 'camping' broadly as residing in or using a public street, sidewalk or park for private living accommodations: erecting a tent or other shelter, sleeping in one place for a substantial, prolonged period, regularly cooking meals, or similar activity. 'Storing personal property' is defined separately as leaving belongings like bedrolls, sleeping bags, luggage or backpacks unattended for a substantial, prolonged length of time, though the definition specifically excludes parking a bicycle or other mode of transportation.

Three sections then lay out the actual bans: § 24-42 makes it unlawful to camp or store personal property in any city-owned park; § 24-43 extends the same ban to public streets, defined to include sidewalks, benches, parking lots and medians; and § 24-44 bars camping, sleeping, sitting, lying down or storing property on other public property where doing so blocks entry to or exit from buildings. Before anyone can be arrested under this article, § 24-45 requires that they first receive an oral or written warning to stop; only a failure to comply with that warning exposes a person to arrest for urban camping.

Section 24-46 then carves out ten specific exceptions so the ban does not sweep in ordinary public life: medical emergencies, wheelchair users resting on sidewalks, parade- and festival-goers sitting or lying down, sidewalk-cafe patrons, people seated on public benches or in bus-stop seating, orderly ticket or service lines, and children asleep in a stroller or being carried. The article does not spell out a separate sanitation or cleanup protocol for abandoned belongings beyond the warn-then-arrest sequence in § 24-45.