CA- No place to call home: Vagrant describes circumstances and how they came about

1-31-2009 California:

Jesse Rodriguez can be labeled many ways: father, boyfriend, two-strike felon, ex-con, homeless, a 43-year-old. The list goes on.

But three numbers, 290, have defined his life for the past three years.

Two-ninety serves as a euphemism for sex offenders. It refers to the penal code section that requires them to register with the state so law enforcement officers can track them.

Rodriguez was convicted in 1981 of a sex offense when he was 15 years old. He calls it an assault in juvenile prison that he said was meant to test his manhood. He won the fight, but lost the war.

A 2001 drunken driving conviction put him in the slam for several years. It also dredged up his teenaged crime and cast a long shadow on his life when he was released.

While a homeless life may be romanticized, as it is in folk songs such as Burl Ives' "Big Rock Candy Mountain," Rodriguez doesn't sleep near cigarette trees or lemonade springs.

Before he goes anywhere for any length of time, he calls his parole officer to clear it. Under state law, he must keep far from schools and parks. His curfew is 9 p.m.

Rodriguez' parole ends in March 2010, which means he'll be free to move about Merced County or leave, as he plans. He can then hand in his ankle bracelet, a digital shackle. Despite a rap sheet and daily temptations, he's committed to playing it straight.

"I don't want my life to be a locked door," he said. "I want to hold my own keys."

Because he's scared about becoming a target for violence both for being homeless and a registered sex offender, the Sun-Star agreed to not use his real last name or to show his face.

He remained nervous about being profiled, but hopes telling his story will bring him to terms with what he's done. "Maybe this is me washing my hands," he said, "asking for forgiveness."

Of the 515 registered sex offenders in Merced County, 30 are listed as transient, and about 80 are serving out parole. The state puts the most dangerous ones without a place in a group home to protect the public.

The more stable ones like Rodriguez live along Black Rascal Creek on railroad land in their own colony.

While the city recently found a short-term fix to house the homeless at the Merced Rescue Mission, a way to give sex offenders on parole a roof and bed remains elusive. That's the result of the stricter restrictions put in place when voters overwhelmingly approved Jessica's Law, a 2006 ballot measure.

A homeless task force is bouncing around ideas of what can be done to keep them off the street. It hopes to offer a report to the Merced City Council by the end of February.

The three shelters available to the homeless -- the D Street shelter, the mission and Sierra Presbyterian Church -- can't house sex offenders.

After the law was enforced, statewide the number of paroled sex offenders registered as transient shot up to 1,056, a 600 percent increase from 88, according to a report by the Sex Offender Management Board released in December.

Locally, agents kicked them out of the 16th Street motels where they'd been staying because that residence didn't follow the law. Rodriguez was among them.

Few Mercedians muster any sympathy for sex offenders, but keeping them on the streets isn't the solution.

The state's sex offender board warns, "The body of literature and research to date indicate that a lack of stable and appropriate housing can contribute to recidivism."

In other words, the public is probably less safe with sex offenders roaming the streets.

A hidden community

A couple dozen homeless people live in camps between Black Rascal Creek and a set of railroad tracks that are only used for parking train cars.

Treated sewer water from the Beachwood neighborhood's plant flows through the creek, making the air acrid with the stench of musty detergent.

Some of the people string rope between trees to use as a clothesline. Rodriguez had hung a thermometer, which read 50 degrees mid-afternoon. In the evenings, the needle swings close to 30 degrees. Stuffed garbage bags line the road. It looks like a 21st century Hooverville -- the desperate camps of the Great Depression.

Rodriguez sleeps on a $20 inflatable mattress inside a 10-foot-by-20-foot tent along Black Rascal Creek. The air-mattress was a recent upgrade he bought after working some odd jobs.

He relieves himself in a portable camping toilet. He charges his ankle bracelet and cell phone with a friend's gas-powered generator. He pedals around town on a bicycle.

Rodriguez took home $35 a day for holding signs advertising the big-box store's close-out sales. Last week, he dug up a pipe for $40 and collected another $75 for weed-whacking and raking a vacant home's yard.

Food stamps pay for his meals. He tries to save his cash for clothes or other essentials. Many of the homeless do their basic shopping at Wal-Mart, just a quick walk away. They fill up their water jugs at a spigot near the car wash.

In the center of his campsite, Rodriguez has a patio table missing its glass top. In its place rests a plastic window shutter, where he keeps a jar of extra crunchy Skippy peanut butter, mustard, mayonnaise and raspberry preserves. Two pots and two saucepans, both dirty, also sit on the table.

He lives among other sex offenders and, just as he doesn't like to be judged, doesn't ask much about their crimes. "I don't even let my mind get there," he said. "It ain't my call."

It's a life he's accepted.

A life of mistakes

Rodriguez organizes his life by crimes and dates, summarizing it like this:

He was born in the City of Commerce and moved to the San Luis Obispo area in the mid-'70s when he was 10 because doctors told his parents the Southern California air was choking their asthmatic son.

After a few years there, his family settled in the Bay Area. His dad, a speed freak, abused him and his mom.

Trouble caught up with him in junior high, just about the time his parents split. He hung out with runaways, gang members and other troublemakers. He dressed to the nines in pleated pants, Stacy Adams shoes and collared shirts.

By 13, he had tried PCP, began boozing and even sniffed paint. All this, and some other run-ins with the law, sent him into the state's juvenile justice system, where he bounced around.

There, boys were often "punked." That's when one would show his dominance by rubbing against another boy. Sometimes they'd be raped. "You had to protect your manhood," Rodriguez explained.

In 1981, at the Karl Holton Youth Correctional Drug and Alcohol Treatment Facility, he was cornered by one teen.

He went on the offensive, dropping his pants and yanking the boy's head to his crotch. "Suck it!" he recalls yelling at the 15-year-old.

That angry act changed his life forever.

Rodriguez was convicted of oral copulation, a crime that has followed him around.

Three years later, after getting released, he cold-cocked a man in a parking lot, stealing about $100. He was convicted of robbery.

In 1991, he beat a homicide charge. He and a friend were crossing a dark overpass when they collided with two gang members. Knives were drawn. One member was killed. An inch-wide scar shows where Rodriguez was stabbed in the hip. He was arrested for the death.

"(My attorney) was a beautiful man," he said. "He just said I have a chance."

He beat the charge, but his wife left him, taking his son with her. He moved around some more and ended up in Merced and Mariposa, where he dated a woman.

Her father gave him a rifle as a gift. He was popped for a parole violation. In 2001, he was drunk and with a friend. They were racing down Sandy Mush Road and landed in a canal bank when he took a 15 mph turn at about 65.

He was sentenced to 32 months in prison, which was upped to 40 months after he went on the lam for 16 months.

After serving the term, he was released on parole and told, because of the nature of his sex offense, he had to register as a sex offender. He wept in the state office, feeling like a marked man.

"My whole life changed," he said. "I wasn't going to be able to spend time with my nieces and nephews. I'd be missing out on their lives."

Though his sex offense dated back decades, he was still a convicted sex offender on parole, even if it was for a different crime.

Because the crime happened when he was a juvenile, he isn't listed on the Megan's Law Web site. But it still meant staying 2,000 feet from schools and parks, an ankle bracelet and public scorn.

Community partnership key

Though many sex offenders see their relationship with parole officers as us-versus-them, Rodriguez believes the officials just doing their job and plays by their rules.

That's echoed by David Domico, Merced's parole office manager, who explained that voters sent a clear message when they approved Jessica's Law. It lumped sex offenders together and added more restrictions to their lives.

"It doesn't differentiate between child molesters or someone convicted of indecent exposure in 1980," he explained.

The office held community meetings after the law passed and urged paroled sex offenders to get their lives together. In August 2007, officers forced them out of the 16th Street motels. Seventeen declared themselves transient that day.

Parole remains the only law enforcement agency in the county enforcing the 2,000-foot distance from schools and parks that registered sex offenders must follow. Most agencies are waiting to see whether the courts hold the requirements legal.

The state isn't responsible for housing parolees or sex offenders, though it maintains some homes, Domico said. The key, he said, is finding solutions by involving the community.

Other states have begun finding ways to help sex offenders get back on their feet through transitional housing, according to a state report.

Colorado sponsors group homes that house two-to-three convicts each. They're able to support one another and learn social norms.

In Suffolk County, New York, sex offenders are put in mobile homes that are moved to different parts of the county every few weeks to keep from burdening any one area.

Sex offenders in Washington stay in houses or apartments leased by the government and are supervised correctional officers.

With the help of $32 million in foundation grants, Minnesota built 3,000 housing units for homeless people.

Domico's office works with Continuum of Care, a network of groups that help the homeless. It hasn't yet been approached about the new task force, which formed two weeks ago. It still needs to be approved by the Merced County Association of Governments.

Merced Rescue Mission executive director Herb Opalek chairs the committee and has begun seeking what can be done to house homeless sex offenders.

Besides checking with other counties, he's trying to learn if there are any foreclosed homes far from schools and parks that could be bought by local government. "All we can do is suggest," Opalek said. "We hope we'll bring the issue to the forefront and get something done."

Any group home requires a permit from the city or county and the acceptance of neighbors, who typically aren't comfortable with sex offenders living next door.

A map the city drew up shows a few slivers of land within Merced's city limit where violent and nonviolent sex offenders could live.

Avoiding mistakes

Rodriguez went to a mobile medical bus Tuesday to get his aching molar looked at by a doctor. Waiting to be called, one of his fellow sex offenders said he should request Valium, which he could sell on the street for a few dollars a pill.

"Oh yeah, then I'll live the high life selling pills," Rodriguez shot back sarcastically.

He came out of the checkup with a baggie filled with ibuprofen and an appointment with a dentist for the next day.

Every day is filled with temptation that he's dodging. When his parole ends, he plans to move to Hawaii, where one of his brothers lives.

"I don't want to be in trouble. My life just gets harder," he said. "I'm determined to do this correctly." ..News Source.. by SCOTT JASON