Monterey Park, CA Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Chapter 6.37, Unlawful Use of Public Property, adopted in 2020, defines an encampment as a location with camp facilities, cooking facilities, and other evidence of human habitation, and defines restricted areas as public rights-of-way and public property including parks and parking lots. Section 6.37.040 makes it unlawful to sleep, camp, or store personal property including camp facilities and paraphernalia on restricted public property, to use a house car for human habitation without a permit, or to occupy restricted property in a way that blocks pedestrian or vehicle traffic.

Section 6.37.050 exempts homeless persons from the sleeping and camping prohibitions only when overnight shelter space is unavailable, though the exemption never covers separate rules on waste disposal, decency, or noise. Under Section 6.37.100, any property found in restricted areas or an encampment beyond what the chapter authorizes is deemed abandoned, and the city manager may remove it. Section 6.37.120 requires the city to post a dated notice at or near the removal site listing the items taken, a phone number to arrange retrieval, and the claim deadline, and to keep an inventory by location and item type.

Personal effects, defined to include medication, eyeglasses, sanitary bedding, usable tents, protected clothing, and any item worth at least fifty dollars, must be stored for ninety days and released to a verified owner unless connected to a crime, per Section 6.37.130.