FL- Where neighbors are sex offenders: Housing restrictions for released predators create dilemma

8-5-2009 Florida:

Restrictive housing laws mean released predators are forced to live in clusters

Just outside Pahokee, 28 registered sex offenders live in a community that once housed migrants who worked in the sugar cane fields.

They have served prison time for charges such as sexual battery on a child younger than 12, lewd and lascivious molestation and using the Internet to try to solicit a child for sex, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

With at least 17 laws restricting where Palm Beach County's 835 registered sex offenders can live, it's resulting in a clustering of sex offenders, such as those living in Pahokee's Pelican Lake community.

"They have served their time and are still in prison, in essence, because of the laws and regulations," said Dick Witherow, director of Matthew 25 Ministries, which runs a prison aftercare program. Through an affiliate company, Matthew 25 leases the Pelican Lake development and rents the units to registered sex offenders.

Others who live in the 25-unit duplex community are not registered sex offenders. There's an ongoing investigation by the county and the Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches alleging that families with children were illegally forced out of their homes.

Likewise, in Broward County, 92 registered sex offenders live in one square-mile in the Broadview Park community, the largest of three small pockets left in unincorporated Broward where offenders legally can find a home.

To help that neighborhood, Broward commissioners in April passed an emergency ordinance barring any more offenders from moving in.

Before the law expires in October, commissioners are expected to discuss making it permanent. Part of that debate would center on the likelihood that more sex offenders and predators would become wanderers who are hard to monitor.

Broward has 1,275 registered sex offenders.

Broadview Park became such a haven for sex offenders that one business-savvy offender, Randy Young, set up group homes, including a five-bedroom home that once housed 24 offenders. Young, 53, was convicted in 2003 of lewd or lascivious conduct on a minor.

Today, he runs a website called Housingforsexoffenders.com. He specializes in finding areas like Broadview Park throughout the state and converting houses into group homes.

"Business has snowballed," Young said recently. "I have doctors, I have probation officers, I have public defenders all calling me every day to find out if I have a place for someone."

Opponents of strict residential requirements for offenders worry that pushing predators away only makes it harder to keep track of them.

"This is not an issue of feeling sympathetic for sex offenders," said Jill Levenson, assistant professor of human services at Lynn University Bachelor's, master's & online degrees and chairwoman of a 13-member Broward County Commission task force studying the issue. "We're looking at an issue where every solution creates another problem."

She and others point to Miami-Dade County, where housing for offenders has been all but eliminated. As of June, Miami-Dade had 175 sex offenders listed as "transients." Broward County had 29; Palm Beach County had 21. Authorities do not know the whereabouts of 39 Palm Beach County offenders and 47 Broward offenders who have not reported their addresses and are classified as "absconded."

State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D- Greenacres, plans to keep pushing for a bill to create a standardized, statewide 1,500-foot rule that would include a 24-hour child-protection zone, banning loitering around schools, parks and libraries. A statewide standard would avoid unintended colonies of sex offenders.

For people convicted on or after Oct. 1, 2004, state law prohibits sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of any school, day care center, park or playground. In 2006, Palm Beach County enacted its own law with a stricter 2,500-foot ban.

In addition, 16 municipalities have their own laws, according to Detective Larry Wood of the Palm Beach County's Sheriff's Office Sexual Predator and Offender Tracking Unit. Other communities rely on the state or county laws. If an offender lived at an address prior to a law's passage, he or she is grandfathered

"And the county ordinance has a loophole that out-of-state convictions don't qualify [for sex offender residency restrictions] and you can live in unincorporated Palm Beach County," said Wood.

In Broward, 24 communities have adopted laws since 2005 restricting where offenders can live. Most set 2,500-foot buffer zones. Some were so restrictive that they effectively blanket an entire city.

Broward officials estimate there are only about 104,000 residential units left where sex offenders can legally live throughout the county.

"That number is an overestimation," said Glen Amoruso, a county planner. "In some areas, there might not be any units available at all."

For Witherow, Matthew 25's director, his goal in providing housing at Pahokee's Pelican Lake is to help offenders move beyond their past. Classes such as anger management and living lives of sexual purity are offered, he said.

"There's literally no place [sex offenders] can live according to residency laws as they are now," he said. "Most offenders are not monsters." ..Source.. by Missy Diaz and Ihosvani Rodriguez, South Florida Sun-Sentinel