- May 23, 2025
The Palm Coast City Council and the Ormond Beach City Commission both unanimously passed the first of two votes to implement an ordinance banning overnight camping and sleeping in public spaces at their April 15 meetings.
The cities' ordinances are meant to ensure they are in compliance with a 2024 law that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed that bans sleeping or camping overnight in public spaces or city-owned right of ways. The law - Florida Statute 125.0231 - explicitly prohibits cities or counties from allowing "any person to regularly engage in public camping or sleeping on any public property, including, but not limited to, any public building or its grounds and any public right-of-way under the jurisdiction of the county or municipality."
The law went into effect on Oct 1.
Palm Coast acting City Manager Lauren Johnston said the law allows the cities to follow their own processes for trespass.
"It really gives us an option of issuing a trespass warning and then following our [city’s] process,” Johnston said to the Palm Coast Council.
In Palm Coast, Code Enforcement Manager Barbara Grossman said a trespass is valid for two years in Palm Coast, unless it is appealed and repealed by a special magistrate.
Ormond Beach Commissioner Lori Tolland noted the law makes no provisions about camping or sleeping during the day. She asked city attorney Randy Hayes if it were necessary to enact a further ordinances addressing the daytime issue.
"We have other ordinances that deal with camping, generally speaking other circumstances. This is not intended to address that specifically, but we do have public ways that we try to resolve those types of situations," he said. "This is just getting us in line."
But the law does not require municipalities to have a designated space to send those trespassed off of one public space. According to the Statute, it says counties may designate a space to send those impacted to. But the county would still need to follow additional regulations:
The space cannot be designated for camping or sleeping for more than one year. The property must be own by a city or municipality and have a majority approval by the municipality's governing body to use the land for that process. The county must then ensure the safety of the people using the space, maintain sanitation, provide behavioral health services and prohibit drugs and alcohol on the property.
Ormond Beach works with First Step Shelter, a nonprofit shelter that opened in 2019. The shelter partners with municipalities to help homeless men and women find jobs and permanent housing while connecting them to resources they need, such as mental health programs.
Flagler County has no shelter to send its homeless population.
It means the city is just displacing individuals to another area where it is also an issue, Palm Coast Council member Ty Miller said. He said the council and county needs to look into what options are available to support the municipality's residents who are in need of help.
“If we’re just displacing somebody, and we’re not helping them," Miller said, "It’s just going to continue to be a problem and we’re just moving it down the street, so to speak.”
