Sex Offenders Have Nowhere to Live

There's no doubt that laws targeting sex offenders have a valuable purpose — to protect the public, and especially kids, from dangerous individuals. But these laws don't quite work when what they're doing is driving sex offenders to live under bridges.

Earlier this year, this problem came starkly to light in Florida's Miami-Dade county, after national media exposed a sex offender shantytown under a highway. How did they county respond to the pressure? They came up with a band-aid solution: first by demolishing the camp, and then by putting its 92 residents into studio apartments with six-month leases.

Predictably, the six-month apartments are now about to expire, and many of the 92 residents have nowhere to go. The county hasn't addressed the root of the problem, which is the fact that it restricts sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school or park. Almost every house in a city like Miami lies within 2,500 feet of such a school or park, which is what originally drove the 92 people to live under a bridge — and unless that policy is changed, it will continue to fuel homelessness.

Jessica has covered this issue at our End Homelessness blog, pointing out that living situations aren't exactly what drive crime. Though reforms to address this issue are pending in Florida, for the moment, counties still operate under their own authority. Accordingly, Miami-Dade is continuing to close doors on former sex offenders who are trying to turn their lives around. For example, one man, Joseph Mortimer, recently had his house foreclosed and was subsequently barred from living on the same block because he was no longer grandfathered out of the 2,500-foot rule.

This kind of red tape for sex offenders doesn't prevent crime — all it does create uncertainty and difficultly for people when what they need is help leading productive, safe lives.

To make matters worse, California is now following in Florida's footsteps. Not content to simply push restrictive laws that drive sex offenders to congregate in the few neighborhoods in which they're actually allowed to live, the state is considering new restrictions to strictly regulate the number of parolees who can live in a given neighborhood.

But make no mistake: We can't ask former sex offenders to become productive members of society if we insist on driving them to the far fringes.

Photo Credit: twbuckner