Should Shelters Ban Sex Offenders?

by Shannon Moriarty · 2009-11-18 18:03:00 UTC
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Everybody, including sex offenders, needs a place to live. If proposed legislation in Massachusetts passes, registered sex offenders would be barred from staying in homeless shelters, begging the question: where are they supposed to go?

There are few questions that get people as riled up as those regarding registered sex offenders, particularly homeless sex offenders. Serving this population can be difficult, costly work for homeless service providers. Residential restrictions make housing almost impossible to find. Stepping up security in homeless shelters can be expensive, and other shelter guests may not feel comfortable knowing that a level 3 sex offender is sleeping on the adjacent cot.

But according to proponents of the legislation, the real problem lies with the requirement to report an address. Since residential bans can make it all but impossible to find affordable housing that is not near schools, playgrounds, or daycare centers, many sex offenders will bypass this requirement by simply listing a homeless shelter address, which allows them to live wherever they please. According to the Boston Globe, 74 percent of Boston's level 3 sex offenders had a homeless shelter listed as their address.

Sure, this loophole presents public safety concerns. If we don't know that a level 3 sex offender lives nearby, how can we protect ourselves?

Of course, there's a flip side to this. If a sex offender is homeless - really homeless - and banned from shelters, where are they supposed to go? Might they end up like Thomas Pauli in Michigan, who was turned away from two shelters before freezing to death on the side of the road? And aren't we all better off if a dangerous sex offender is at least tracked in a shelter rather than being unaccounted for and at-large in the city?

The real solution to this problem is to "shut the front door," as they say. That is, to prevent sex offenders from becoming homeless in the first place. Homeless service providers are simply not equipped to provide the counseling and housing services necessary to meet the needs of dangerous sex offenders, particularly when meeting the needs of the general homeless population is challenging enough.

If public safety is truly a concern, as the state legislature is claiming, attention should be focused on re-entry programs within the criminal justice system. It is the only way to ensure public safety while ensuring nobody is banished to the streets.

Shannon Moriarty has worked in various homeless shelters and service organizations around the country. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.
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