The Camping Ban and Homelessness in Carbondale

On August 11, 2026, the Carbondale City Council in Carbondale, Illinois passed an ordinance banning sleeping and camping on public property within city limits.

This new ordinance prohibits all forms of camping on public property including sleeping outdoors, camping, and sleeping in vehicles overnight for two or more hours. Violators of the ordinance are subject to fines with the possibility of paying off said fines through minimum-wage labor (public service cleaning work) for the city.

The online City Code of Carbondale hasn’t been updated yet to reflect this new ordinance. However, the full unamended text of the ordinance is available on the Agendas and Minutes page of the city government’s website. The Council passed the ordinance with an amendment to eliminate the text about the city seeking to incarcerate people who fail to pay the fines.

Local responses to this ordinance have been mixed, to say the least. Some people support it as a public health and safety measure while others oppose it as an attack on our unhoused neighbors. As a long-time Carbondale resident, I want to share my concerns, analysis, and recommendations.

The short version is that I’m not opposed to the basic idea of the ordinance, but I’m deeply concerned about the fines and enforcement, especially in the current context.

I’m a municipalist. I believe that municipal government can and should be a place where we the people decide how to manage public resources and public affairs. This includes passing municipal ordinances about how public space is used and what the living conditions are like in the places people call home, whether that may be a house, apartment, or something more transient like a hotel, shelter, or outdoor public space.

Public camping in urban areas creates problems both for the general public and for the people doing the camping. It converts a public space into private use, often making it difficult or impossible for other people to use the space for its intended public purposes. For example, it may block public sidewalks or make people feel less safe passing through or spending time in a public area. Prolonged encampments may lead to public health and safety concerns, both for the people doing the camping and for people in neighboring areas. Therefore, I support the broad idea of a municipal government placing limits on where and how public camping occurs in an urban environment.

But how we go about placing limits on public camping makes a world of difference. And the broader context makes a world of difference too.

Any attempt to address public camping in Carbondale through municipal enforcement actions should consider the interests and perspectives of everyone in the city, including the unhoused. Everyone in Carbondale should have a say in ordinance decisions like this, including the unhoused.

We should also consider the broader context, including but not limited to the following:

• The root causes of homelessness
• Solutions that don’t involve fines or other punitive measures
• The support resources and services available (and unavailable) in our city
• The fact that other cities are sending their unhoused people here (and therefore should contribute financially to solutions)
• The unintended consequences of enforcement actions
• The very real possibility that the broader economic and political situation beyond Carbondale will get worse before it gets better and before any new long-term solutions are implemented locally or beyond

These considerations may help the supporters of the camping ban understand why some people in Carbondale are so outraged about the ban.

This camping ban isn’t happening in a vacuum. Many people in Carbondale are either experiencing some degree of poverty themselves, or deeply concerned about the poverty of their neighbors, or both. I can only speak for myself, but my impression is that many people in this city care about the well-being of the unhoused and are also keenly aware that they too may only be one paycheck or medical emergency away from losing their housing.

And then there’s enforcement. Any municipal ordinance that requires the unhoused to pay punitive fines or interact with the police runs the risk of devastating consequences for them. Unpaid fines may ultimately lead to incarceration, even if it’s not a part of the ordinance. Interactions with the police may also escalate into violence or other unintended consequences, particularly for people of marginalized communities and identities.

The broader context makes matters worse. The far right is pushing increasingly harsh austerity measures and increasingly harsh law enforcement actions in this country. This means that more people are living in poverty and suffering legal consequences and systemic violence rather than finding good opportunities or receiving support. Treating the unhoused like criminals to be fined, evicted, and possibly arrested, rather than survivors of a hostile economic and political system, is going to generate justified outrage.

This isn’t necessarily an insurmountable problem. We can create municipal policy that takes us in a better direction than the broader federal trends – and it’s important for us to do so. We can discuss and finalize the Comprehensive Plan on Homelessness that I’ve heard some people talk about (and that I would like to see myself). We can consider whether or not establishing a designated public camping site like some larger cities have done makes sense for our city. We can continue to seek and secure grant money and other resources to improve access to services for the unhoused and at-risk populations. We can strive to bring together all of the people in this city who care about the unhoused in order to work together on solutions rather than fighting among ourselves.

But talk is cheap – and good intentions don’t provide housing.

It’s all well and good to talk about future solutions to the problem. I’m glad to hear that the city government is working on developing such solutions. I want the city government to devote considerable time and funding to meeting the needs of the unhoused and others in Carbondale who are struggling.

But if those solutions aren’t ready yet, then they don’t do any good for someone who is currently unhoused, or may soon be unhoused, and therefore faces a fine and other enforcement actions due to this ordinance. For them, the consequences will come before the solutions are fully implemented. Because that is the order in which the current members of the Carbondale City Council have chosen to implement the city’s policy on homelessness. Fines now and other solutions later.

There has been a question on my mind for years now about how our city responds to homelessness. This question first came to mind when I was the director of a community center years ago. I occasionally had people, including unhoused people, come to me in search of resources that our organization couldn’t provide. I did my best to refer them to other places that might be able to help them. But it often seemed like there weren’t any good options available to them. This raised a broad question for me that I have since heard multiple unhoused people, locally and elsewhere, voice in public discussions.

What specific choice can an unhoused person make to avoid getting in trouble if local shelters don’t have space for them and they don’t have a place to stay?

If someone is subject to a fine or other enforcement actions, then there should be a choice that this person can make in order to avoid getting in trouble. That currently doesn’t seem to be the case in this instance.

If someone is unhoused in Carbondale, and they can’t afford a place to stay, and they’re unable to stay at local shelters, then they have no choice but to camp in public. If we fine them for that behavior without offering an alternative choice, then we’re fining them (and potentially incarcerating them) simply for being poor.

I’m not saying that I have all of the answers about what to do about homelessness in Carbondale. I don’t. The city government, several nonprofits, and other concerned parties are working on solutions. Some of them might be good solutions. I also have some ideas that I haven’t seen discussed and would like to describe in more detail in the future.

In the meantime, implementing fines first and trying to sort out a Comprehensive Plan for Homelessness later seems like a backwards approach to me. It inspires justified outrage among some people who are concerned for the welfare of the unhoused. And it leaves the unhoused without a clear means of avoiding fines and other consequences.

We can do better. Let’s work together on solutions that don’t involve treating our unhoused neighbors like criminals who should be fined for the crime of being unhoused. Let’s instead work together to provide services and options to the unhoused and to everyone who is at risk of becoming unhoused.

Times are tough and may be getting tougher. But we can work together to ensure that everyone is housed and fed.