Challenges of Serving Homeless Sex Offenders

7-29-2009 National:

Housing sex offenders is no easy task. In many communities, there are restrictions on where convicted sex offenders are permitted to live, which can severely limit housing options. This core issue, combined with the challenges of helping a convicted sex offender become financially independent, complicates the task of serving homeless sex offenders.

This workshop topic: the challenges of serving sex offenders.

4:00pm - Moderator to room of 50: "For those of you who work with sex offenders, f you have a successful story you want to tell, or a strategy you want to share, please raise your hand.

4:03 - All kidding aside, successful strategies for serving homeless sex offenders include working with parole officers and knowing your laws.

4:04 - One comment illustrates just how interconnected homeless services, prisoner re-entry, and housing sex offenders can be: "Our shelter is used as a dump for the prison; people come straight from prison to our shelter. Ironically, we're right next to a school."

4:07 - Great observation: serving a sex offender is hard enough, but navigating all of the restrictions placed on sex offenders by society complicates matters.

4:18 - Talk about collaboration, our group of 50 is making a list of challenges of serving an individual sex offender and challenges that society places on sex offenders.

4:21 - Serving homeless sex offenders has its challenges, even though it's doing the right thing. One organization had a released homeless sex offender refuse to the rules of the program, and went on to brutally murder a 13-year old girl. Faced with the decision to continue serving this population or not, they decided to continue. However, they lost all of their insurance and most of their board members. It wasn't easy.

4:24 - People who are housed, employed, and supervised are much less likely to re-offend than homeless sex offenders.

4:25 - Serving sex offenders is a re-entry issue, not a homeless issue. Amen.

4:41 - Sex offender or not, nobody should die on the streets. Reminds me of this story. "When you humanize people, even sex offenders,

4:43 - England and Scotland didn't impose residency restrictions (because they saw how well it worked here). Instead, they treated sex offenders as a public health issue. Statistic: 10-15 percent of convicted sex offenders will repeat offense, but 100 percent of convicted sex offenders will commit this crime once. We should focus on preventing this crime in the first place.

4:50 - How can homeless service agencies reach out to landlords to serve tough-to-serve populations? Answers: be honest with landlords about the nature of the crime. Also, supportive housing model, where organization pays rent and serves as intermediary between landlord and tenant, allows for early detection of problems and guaranteed rent for landlord. Win-win.

4:58 - One service-provider says that getting offenders into housing is the biggest hurdle; once they're in housing things are typically smooth sailing.

5:01 - Talking about serving homeless sex offenders can easily be over-simplified, or over-complicated. We need real answers for people's concerns about living in a community with sex offenders. People are scared. Sex crimes can be heinous.

5:05 - Great answer: Look at this from a public health perspective. When is the public safer? When convicted sex offenders are living under bridges in precarious situations, or in permanent housing with supportive services?

5:07 - This session has made clear that more research is needed on this topic. Data is needed on the summer of homeless convicted sex offenders and effective solutions. Researchers, graduate students, academics, think tanks - these service providers are looking at you!

5:10 - It's important to recognize that serving homeless convicted sex offenders takes a lot of patience and tenacity. It's not an easy job. But it's extremely important, albeit thank-less, work. ..Source.. by Shannon Moriarty