Jackson, MS Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Section 110-29, adopted by Ordinance No. 2020-8(3) on April 14, 2020, defines camp or camping broadly: using a street, sidewalk, other right-of-way, or an area under a bridge for living-accommodation purposes, including sleeping, preparing to sleep, laying down bedding, storing personal belongings, making a fire, cooking, or using a tent or other structure for habitation. Whether the activity counts as camping turns on whether, given all the circumstances, it reasonably appears the person is using the area as a living accommodation, regardless of their actual intent; the definition specifically excludes activity occurring solely inside city-owned parks.

Subsection (b) makes it unlawful to camp, and subsection (c) separately makes it unlawful to store personal property, defined as leaving personal effects such as clothing, bedrolls, cookware, sleeping bags, luggage, knapsacks or backpacks unattended on public property, under a bridge, or in a park; parking a bicycle does not count. The sanitation and cleanup mechanism sits in subsection (f): where personal property is stored in violation of subsection (c), the Jackson Police Department may deem it abandoned and confiscate it without any prior warning, then retain it the same way it handles other confiscated property.

Enforcement is graduated for the camping and interference prohibitions: under subsection (e), nobody can be arrested under this section until Jackson police first give an oral or written warning to stop, and only a failure to comply with that warning exposes a person to arrest. The prohibitions on camping and storing property do not apply during a permitted outdoor event on the permitted site, or to city, state or county officials, employees, contractors or subcontractors acting within their official duties or contract scope, under subsections (g) through (i).