CA- Parolees to be homeless sooner

2-24-2009 California:

New state policy limits housing help to 60 days

STOCKTON - When Richard, a registered sex offender on parole, was left homeless in December, he built a small trailer to sleep in and hitched it to the back of his truck.

"I got a bedroom on wheels," he said.

Richard, 59, declined to provide his last name. That would cause him too much trouble, he said. He is one of thousands affected by a recent change in state policy to limit housing assistance to parolees to 60 days. Many of them, particularly in Stockton, were housed in motels near freeways and in rundown parts of town, far away from schools and parks.

The change has rendered dozens of registered sex offenders in Stockton homeless and may hurt the livelihoods of local motel operators who have transformed their businesses to accommodate the state's needs.

It also threatens to further stress parole agents who monitor sex offenders and enforce their compliance with parole conditions and laws that limit their movement. When they become transients, they are harder to track. They still wear GPS monitors but are no longer registered to a specific address.

"That definitely always creates some concern for our agents, who already have a difficult task as it is," said Gordon Hinkle, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Hinkle said the change is not to save money, but to use it more wisely. The money used to house parolees will instead pay for substance abuse programs, job programs and other rehabilitation efforts.

"We think it's especially important with the state in a fiscal crisis to pay close attention to where we put that money," Hinkle said. "There will be an immediate savings, but that money will get re-appropriated."

From February 2008 to Jan. 31, the state spent nearly $20 million on housing assistance for 7,897 parolees. Of those, 4,965 were registered sex offenders who may have been on parole for non-sexual offenses.

Dozens of those were living near the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds at the Stockton Motor Inn, which was recently granted a one-year permit by the Planning Commission to house parolees for the state. The motel had been housing parolee sex offenders, the majority of them from San Joaquin County, since 2007. The owner requested the permit in 2008 after learning it was required by city code.

One of the owners, Mike Kumar, said he worries his business will not survive. To remain profitable, Kumar said, the motel needs to maintain about 80 percent occupancy. The policy change has reduced occupancy to about 70 percent, and he's not sure it will ever catch up if parolees are out after 60 days.

"I don't think so," he said. "There is no way they can fill up this place." And it's virtually impossible now to return to operation as a conventional motel, he said.

"Most of our regular customers are not coming back," he said.

Parole Unit Supervisor Susan Kane said that in Stockton, housing assistance is being cut off slowly, on a case-by-case basis. By midweek, about 20 parolees had re-registered as homeless. Many more, she said, had managed to find other housing arrangements.

Many parolee sex offenders said there are few places in Stockton where they can live that are compliant with Jessica's Law, which forbids them from living within 2,000 feet of any public or private school, or any park where children regularly gather.

"They're going to have a lot of sex offenders running the street," said John Kincaid, 42, who lives at the Stockton Motor Inn. Kincaid has 60 days to find someplace else to live. If he ends up homeless, which he said was likely, he'll get a fishing pole and a tent, and camp down by the river.

"I'm just trying to have good spirits about it," he said. ..News Source.. by Christian Burkin, Record Staff Writer