The Birmingham City Council is considering adopting a policy setting rules for clearing out homeless encampments on public property.

A version of a proposed ordinance presented to councilors last week would allow the city to give 48 hours written notice to people living on public spaces such as parks and rights of way before they were removed and would allow quicker action in priority or emergency situations.

“We also want to ensure that our unhoused are directed to the appropriate resources and the appropriate housing options for them,” Alanah L. Melton, director of unhoused strategies for the city, told councilors during a Committee of the Whole meeting Thursday. “Our public infrastructure is just not appropriate housing, thus this public camping ordinance is born.”

The move comes amid an ongoing discussion about homelessness in Birmingham. The city set aside $1.5 million in this year’s budget to address homelessness. It partners with multiple organizations to provide shelter, mental health intervention and access to resources to help unhoused individuals improve their lives and potentially find work and permanent housing. Earlier this month, the mayor’s office proposed establishing a day park for unhoused people downtown that would include resources along with a place to safely gather. After criticism about the location being considered, a block from Innovation Depot, the proposal was withdrawn, with the mayor saying his office would look for another property.

Homelessness overall has declined, Melton told the council Thursday, but unhoused individuals are being seen more.

“We have about 500 folks who are experiencing homelessness on our streets each night,” she said. “We’ve seen across our system a decrease in homelessness overall but an increase in unsheltered homelessness, thus an increase of the visibility of encampments. Today, we’re talking about encampments, particularly on public property.”

Melton gave the council its first look at a draft of an ordinance to regulate encampments in public spaces. She defined encampments as one or more persons living on public property for 24 hours or more.

Under the proposal, people found living on public lands would be given 48 hours written notice to leave. Melton stressed that written notice would come with access to resources.

“Even going out now, we always make sure that we offer whatever housing options are available,” she said. “Our police officers leave behind resources as well. We go through the notice of removal process. We’re wanting to get our unhoused residents in the mindset of going into shelter. Right now, we go through the process of allowing them to sort on their own what’s trash and what’s treasure, the things that they want to take.”

Then a Department of Public Works crew clears what remains from the area.

“We want to move no more than a two-bag system because there’s no shelter that would allow them to have more than two bags,” she said. “We are working on storage opportunities for people. Storage would be no more than 30 days, and that’s outlined here as well.”

Council President Wardine Alexander asked about encampments in private spaces such as abandoned houses or structures. Chief Prosecutor Joseph J. Basgier explained that the squatters law or the trespassing process could be followed if the city had access to an owner.

“If we’re dealing with a truly abandoned property where we have, for example, an out-of-state owner or an unidentified owner, that may be something where we would have to … maybe look at some litigation to remove them,” Basgier said. “That’s not going to be a fast process, unfortunately. This public camping ordinance does allow us to move a little more quickly because it’s on public property.”

Councilor Brian Gunn asked whether consideration had been given to any unintended consequences of removing encampments and how their removal could affect private property. Melton talked about efforts in other cities to avoid criminalizing homelessness as people are “made” to go into shelters.

She said shelters are working to increase their beds.

“They’re ready for this type of thing to begin to take folks immediately,” the director said. “There will be a time we’d have to come back and revise this (ordinance) and say, if a person wants to move in, that would be our course of action. We would permit them to shelter.”

Melton added that the city is increasing its relationship with mental health resources, especially the Jefferson-Blount-St. Clair Mental Health Authority. “We’re working to learn how we can speed some of that process up to get people help who have some mental health challenges, and substance use as well,” she said.

Councilor Hunter Williams about possible emergency removal of encampments because people there set fires in public and private locations.

“It’s not only when it’s cold. Sometimes they’re just setting fires,” Williams said. “We’ve had several buildings in the city burned down; one the other day. That is likely because a person set fire to it.”

Williams added that residents have been frustrated by the homeless population trashing an area. “It is a massive, basically, debris field,” he said. “One place had 30 shopping carts that they’d stolen from Walmart every day.”

Melton briefed the council that the proposed ordinance would allow quicker removal of unhoused people in two circumstances. The first would be situations that need to be resolved as soon as possible, such as when there is an event scheduled at a city park. “An encampment (could pose) imminent danger to the person in the encampment or the public at large in the cases of emergency situations,” she said.

The second priority situation would apply to encampments that are within 30 feet of critical infrastructure, where drugs or drug paraphernalia are present, and in other areas including near city-leased property, property that’s been declared a public nuisance and areas that have been closed for safety concerns. In those situations, people would be given 24 hours written notice to vacate the premises, Melton said.

The proposed ordinance includes those provisions to allow for removal of encampments for the safety of the public or infrastructure, she said.

“That’s the case for immediate removal as soon as possible. The littering has not been a consideration as much as the paraphernalia that’s there. In the cases where there’s known excessive drug use —­ needles and that kind of thing — that would absolutely escalate it.

“But either way, (the city) would still have grounds to remove (the encampment) within 48 hours, so the longest these encampments will have to stay would be essentially two days.”

The proposed ordinance will return to the committee of the whole in April or May.