Jacksonville Beach, FL Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Section 16-10 opens with a purpose clause: public streets and areas within the city should be readily accessible, and camping or storing personal property interferes with the rights of others, so the section aims to keep public streets, the public beach and all other public areas clean and accessible. The code defines camping as residing in or using a public place for living accommodation purposes, shown by prolonged or repetitious stays with personal possessions such as clothing, sleeping bags, bedrolls, blankets, luggage, backpacks and cookware, sleeping or preparing to sleep, storing belongings, regularly cooking or consuming meals, or living in a parked vehicle. It counts as camping when it reasonably appears from all the circumstances that someone is using the place as living accommodation, regardless of intent. Camp facilities include tents, huts and temporary shelters; camp paraphernalia includes tarpaulins, cots, beds, sleeping bags, hammocks and cooking facilities.

The public beach is defined as the ocean beach between the bulkhead line on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, running to the city limits on the north and the south. Storage of personal property is banned in any public park, street, sidewalk, parking lot or public area, and on the public beach, except as otherwise provided by resolution of the city council. The beach also has a clock: sleeping, lodging, camping or lying there between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. is unlawful when done knowingly and intentionally.

Vehicles are covered by subsection (c)(4). Lodging in any motor vehicle parked on a highway, street, roadway, right-of-way, public beach, parking lot, picnic grounds or other public or semipublic area is unlawful unless the place is set apart or designed for lodging in motor vehicles, and so is aiding, assisting, encouraging or promoting it. In the Downtown Area, between 16th Avenue South and 20th Avenue North and from 4th Street eastward to the high water mark of the Atlantic Ocean, sleeping in a parked motor vehicle between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. is unlawful. Section 16-10 prints no notice period, shelter referral or property-removal procedure.