Allen City Council unanimously voted this month to adopt an ordinance banning public camping.
The ordinance prohibits people from sleeping and camping in public areas, including streets, parking lots, parking garages, sidewalks, apartment buildings, offices and more. The ordinance also bans people from sleeping in vehicles parked in those locations. The city already had an ordinance prohibiting camping in city parks.
Allen Police Chief Steve Dye, who proposed the ordinance, said that officers have seen a rise in people camping on sidewalks and in breezeways outside businesses in recent years.
“I’m making this recommendation because I believe we also have an equal duty to make sure our businesses have unobstructed commerce,” Dye said.
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There was no previous action by council or any city boards or commissions before the vote, according to a city agenda packet.
Historically, people experiencing homelessness in Allen mainly slept in cars, parking lots or in wooded areas, Dye said.
Police officers will be required to issue a warning that is valid for 48 hours before they take enforcement action against people camping in public. Officers will also contact business owners to check if the owners gave people permission to camp near their property before taking enforcement action. An offense under the ordinance would be a misdemeanor, and violators could be charged a fine of up to $500.
Dye said police officers and the department’s crisis intervention unit will take a “benevolent approach,” providing people with medical treatment, food and water.
Members of the Allen City Council said the ordinance was a “proactive measure” to maintain a high quality of life in the city. s
“It gives our officers the tools they need to respond effectively, while continuing to lead with compassion. We’re committed to keeping Allen a safe, welcoming place for all,” city council members said in a statement.
Some exceptions to the ordinance are if people are in the public right of way because of a medical emergency or as a result of a disability. The ordinance would also not apply to those waiting in line to patronize a business.
Point-in-time count
Neither the city of Allen nor its police department collects data on the number of people living outdoors whom officers encounter, said Sammy Rippamonti, a public information officer for the department.
Volunteers with Housing Forward, a nonprofit working to end homelessness in Dallas and Collin counties, annually count the number of people experiencing homelessness. These “Point-In-Time” counts represent a snapshot of homelessness in a community and are a requirement for counties to access federal U.S. Housing and Urban Development funds.
As per the 2025 Point-In-Time count that took place in January, 605 people did not have stable housing in Collin County. Of these, 125 people were living outdoors while the remaining were either living in emergency shelters or in transitional housing. The numbers have fluctuated over the last few years — 356 people were experiencing homelessness in Collin County as per the 2024 Point-In-Time count and 516 as per the 2023 count. Going back further to the 2010s, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Collin County fluctuated between 178 to 531 over the years, as per Point-In-Time count data.
Housing Forward works with several other nonprofits across Collin County to integrate mental health care and outreach into efforts to address homelessness. John Hill, chief external relations officer for Housing Forward, said many cities, including Allen, are facing pressure to address visible street homelessness. The city’s ordinance to ban public camping reflects the fact that municipalities need “better tools” to respond to homelessness, Hill added.
“Cities have to be able to enforce without just moving people around,” Hill said.
As suburbs in Collin County have grown, cities have increasingly dealt with issues that bigger urban centers face. Allen does not have an overnight shelter and people in the region can go to shelters operated by nonprofits and religious organizations, such as the Family Promise of Collin County shelter in Sachse, East Plano Islamic Center and the Samaritan Inn in McKinney, which serves up to 226 residents, according to its website.
In banning outdoor camping, Allen joins McKinney in passing similar ordinances to police homelessness in October. Such laws were made possible by the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision Grants Pass v. Johnson, which said ordinances against camping in public in Grants Pass, Oregon, were legal and did not amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, even if people didn’t have resources to sleep elsewhere.