I don't know about outside of Washington State, but ordinances covering sleeping out in the open fell under vagrancy laws which were repealed a long time ago. I know parks are off limits for that, and using vehicles, campers and tents usually come under the building code which is not something the police would specifically deal with. On another note, the liquor laws covering consuming in public were also decriminalized so not only do we get to watch vagrants in their natural environment, we can sometimes watch them get wasted. Sorry... thats one of my pet peeves.
Thank you so much for the clarification. Although I do EMS, my work doesn't provide me with the "opportunity" to deal with the "homeless" an awful lot, and so I'm woefully ignorant on a lot of these issues. I'm guessing that the ACLU had a major hand in the repeal of the vagrancy laws, as they did in the toughening of the civil-commitment laws. People blame Ronald Reagan for "turning the mental patients out onto the street" but they don't understand (or don't want to hear) that it was the ACLU who brought suit against the State of California during Reagan's Governorship and in so doing forced the State to evict mental patients from the hospitals, depriving them of the care that they need. Reagan had no say in the matter because it was a California Supreme Court decision, but he gets the blame for creating the 'homeless' problem because that follows the Left's template of the Evil, Uncaring Republicans.
On another note, the liquor laws covering consuming in public were also decriminalized so not only do we get to watch vagrants in their natural environment, we can sometimes watch them get wasted. Sorry... thats one of my pet peeves.
I wasn't even aware that the public consumption laws were decriminalized...lawd, things have gotten bad. No need to apologize, I share your sentiment.
Thank you very much for the comprehensive enlightenment :-)