Winter Haven, FL Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Sec. 15-282, in the public parks article, lists camping among the acts no person may do in a city park. The section bars camping anywhere except permanent cabins built for organized camping and used by supervised groups, meaning there is no general right to pitch a tent or set up an informal camp in a Winter Haven park. It goes further than tents: no person may set up a tent, shack, or any other temporary shelter for the purpose of overnight camping, and separately, no person may leave in a park after closing hours any movable structure or special vehicle that is used, or could be used, for that purpose, naming a house trailer, camp trailer or camp wagon as examples.

Because the rule reaches both erected shelters and unattended vehicles left overnight, it functions as the city's tool against an encampment forming in park space, day or night. Enforcement runs through Sec. 15-289: the parks director and any park attendant or designee has authority to eject from a park anyone violating the parks article or its rules, and the director can go further and deny that person access to the park or recreation facility entirely for willfully violating the article, applied fairly and uniformly. A person denied access for more than one week can appeal that denial to the City Manager, whose decision is final.

Sanitation obligations for anyone in a park sit in the adjacent Sec. 15-283, which bars dumping refuse, garbage or trash anywhere in a park except designated receptacles and requires anyone responsible for trash without a receptacle available to carry it out of the park for proper disposal elsewhere.