Wyandotte County, KS Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Sec. 22-130 defines camping broadly, covering sleeping, storing bedding or personal property, cooking, or using a tent or vehicle for living accommodation. Subsection (b) makes unpermitted camping on public property or right-of-way a public nuisance, triggering a 48-hour notice to vacate; a person who ignores that notice, or who has already been warned, can be cited. Subsection (c) strips away the notice entirely for nine listed high-risk locations: under bridges and overpasses, within 50 feet of bus shelters, roadways or rail lines, within 20 feet of doorways or fire escapes, on contaminated or flood-control land, within 500 feet of playgrounds, schools, childcare facilities, pools or golf courses, and within 50 feet of a public restroom, where removal is immediate.

Subsection (d) separately bars unauthorized camping on private property, including vacant buildings, parked vehicles and vacant lots. Property left behind after the 48-hour notice may be impounded by the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department or Wyandotte County Sheriff's Office for 30 days under subsections (e) through (g), while items posing an immediate health threat, such as property soiled with bodily fluids or blocking a walkway, can be discarded without notice. Enforcement, per subsection (h), is shared among the Police Department, Sheriff's Office, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, and the Neighborhood Resource Center. The Unified Government may still issue temporary or special-use camping permits under subsection (i).