Grand Junction, CO Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Sit-Lie Rules (2026)

GJMC § 12.04.070 states that sleeping on a public sidewalk, street, parking strip, alley, lane or right-of-way, or in any publicly used ingress or egress to public property, is unsafe because it may obstruct pedestrian or vehicular traffic and endanger the sleeper or the public. Except where the City expressly authorizes it, subsection (a) flatly bars sleeping on those surfaces and subsection (b) bars sleeping in any publicly used entrance or exit to public property. Subsection (c) sets the enforcement sequence: a violation only becomes unlawful, giving rise to any remedy provided by law, after the person has been asked to cease and desist and continues anyway.

That structure means officers must first issue a verbal or written request to move before a citation can follow. The ordinance sits in the same chapter as the City's broader homelessness rules, GJMC §§ 12.04.080 through .120, which the City Council expressly says are not intended to criminalize homelessness or bar ordinary park uses like resting on a bench. Because § 12.04.070 carries no standalone fine, a citation issued after a refused cease-and-desist request is punished under the Title 1 general penalty, GJMC § 1.04.090, enforced by the Grand Junction Police Department.