San Antonio, TX Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Sec. 21-28(a) bans camping in any public place except in areas the city designates for it. Subsection (b) defines 'public place' broadly as any outdoor area to which the public has access, expressly listing streets, highways, parks, parking lots, alleyways, pedestrian ways, and the common areas of schools, hospitals, apartment houses, office buildings, transport facilities and shops. Subsection (c) defines 'camp' as using a public place for living-accommodation purposes, which the section illustrates with five non-exclusive examples: storing personal belongings, making a campfire, using a tent, shelter or other structure, furniture, refuse or vehicle for living accommodation, carrying on cooking activities, or digging or earth-breaking.

Subsection (d) instructs that these activities count as camping when it reasonably appears, considering all the circumstances, that the participants are using the area for living-accommodation purposes, regardless of their stated intent or any other activity they may also be engaged in. Two carve-outs limit the reach of the ban: subsection (e) makes it an affirmative defense that the person owns the property or has secured the property owner's permission to camp there, and subsection (f) exempts camping or cooking in a city park done in compliance with that park's own regulations.