ND- Registered sex offenders struggle to find housing

9-27-2009 North Dakota:

When high-risk sex offender Richard Vondal moved into a house so close to Mandan High School that the school district had at one time considered buying it, anger and fear was a common reaction among parents and community members.

The high school spread the word to the students. Parents found out from their kids. Mandan police were flooded with phone calls.

At the heart of many of the discussions were false assumptions that North Dakota has laws prohibiting registered sex offenders from living within a certain distance from schools, licensed daycares and public parks. However, North Dakota remains one of a handful of states without such laws, after an attempt at putting 1,000-foot safety zones around such areas died in the North Dakota House of Representatives during the 2009 session.

Vondal was far from the first sex offender to live near a school, and several others live in close proximity to other schools in the Bismarck-Mandan area. However, his case points out the problems communities have in finding adequate and appropriate housing for people convicted of sexual offenses.

Vondal registered an address of 909 Sixth Ave. N.W. in Mandan with authorities in late August. Sex offenders are required to register their addresses and other information with law enforcement for varying amounts of time dependent on their risk level. The Mandan Police Department put out the information on Vondal to local media outlets, who released the information to the public.

Mandan Police Deputy Chief Paul Leingang said his department fielded plenty of calls from parents and others who were angry over Vondal's choice of housing so close to Mandan High School. That's nothing out of the ordinary - people usually are unhappy to hear of a sex offender living nearby or near their children's schools.

"Nobody wants them in their neighborhood," Leingang said.

Parole and Probation Officer Brian Weigel said the Vondal case actually shows how well the registration process in the state works. Under pressure following public release of his address, Vondal chose to move, even before Weigel and other Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation authorities could force him to find a different home. The community was aware of where he was living the entire time, Weigel said.

"It did exactly what it was supposed to," Weigel said about the state's registration process.

Weigel, who is tasked with supervising sex offenders who are on parole and probation, views the house next to the high school as a completely inappropriate abode for a high-risk sex offender. Parole and probation officers can make a person under supervision move if they disagree with their choice of housing.

"We know that's not a good situation for him," Weigel said.

Sex offenders often have trouble finding appropriate housing once people find out who they are and what they've done. Few property owners will rent to sex offenders, and when an offender finds a home, the neighbors aren't always welcoming.

"We're constantly struggling with finding housing for registered offenders," Weigel said.

Developing housing options for sex offenders who have nowhere to go has been an ongoing struggle for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Research has tied stability to lower recidivism rates for sex offenders, which means offenders who are homeless or lack support systems are more likely to reoffend.

"If you're homeless and unable to find stability, it actually makes a more high-risk situation," Weigel said. "Stability is by far the best thing to try to reduce recidivism in the future."

From December 2007 to June 2008, the state DOCR rented a house in south Bismarck for homeless sex offenders. The state did not renew the lease due to public complaints about the program, particularly after two offenders in the house were arrested for violations.

In late June, the DOCR placed a single-wide mobile home on prison property just east of the prison grounds for the purpose of housing homeless sex offenders. Offenders pay $7 a day to live in the trailer, which has four bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Residents of the house have to wear a GPS locator at all times and follow a curfew and rules. The house can hold up to seven men who are under state supervision for sex offenses until they find permanent accommodations of their own.

Currently, two offenders live in the trailer, according to the state sex offender registry. The mobile home cost the state $28,100, and setting up water and other services pushed the price tag to about $35,000.

Christopher Voisine has been living in the trailer since it became available. "I was the first when it (mobile home) opened and I'm trying to be the first out successfully," said Voisine.

The struggle to find adequate housing does not stop for offenders who have completed periods of parole or probation.

Timothy Profrock, a moderate-risk offender, was released from prison in 2005 after serving nine years for criminal sexual conduct in the third degree. The victim was a 27-year-old woman. Unlike Vondal, no one can prohibit him from living wherever he can find housing.

"He paid his debt to society," Morton County Sheriff's Det. Curt Berreth said. "He's done his time. He's just got to abide by the sex offender conditions."

Berreth handles sex offender registrations in Morton County, outside of Mandan. That means that every time a registered offender in rural Morton County changes an address, telephone number, workplace, vehicle, school or other pertinent information, they have to visit Berreth. While some people keep their information constant for 15 or 20 years, others, like Profrock, have become frequent visitors to Berreth's office.

Profrock moved to Mandan in December 2008. He registered an address at a Mandan apartment in March 2009, but eventually was evicted from there, Berreth said.

In late August, Profrock registered an address of a campsite in Graner Park, the first of three public parks he has registered as addresses since then. By early September, he had registered at a campsite in Little Heart Bottoms, followed in mid-September by Fort Lincoln State Park. Berreth expects him to register a new address soon, as Fort Lincoln only allows people to stay there for two weeks.

Berreth said Profrock and his family would like to buy a home in the area or move back to Michigan. Currently, his status as a registered sex offender has kept him and his family from finding a permanent place to rent.

Berreth said the situation is a Catch-22: Sex offenders have to live somewhere and register their addresses, but "nobody wants them around." Because Profrock obeys the law and registers his address, people know who he is and choose not to rent to him.

"It is tough for those guys," he said, noting that it's hard to sympathize with the situation. "That's the way it is. They made choices earlier on in life."

Profrock's cell phone was out of minutes, and he could not be reached for comment, Berreth said.

In efforts to keep sex offenders from living in places where children are plentiful, some states and municipalities across the country have enacted laws requiring registered offenders to live more than a certain distance from schools, playgrounds, daycares and other places children congregate.

A bill was offered to the 2009 North Dakota Legislature that would have prohibited high-risk sex offenders or offenders who have had victims younger than 15 from moving to residences within 1,000 feet of schools, parks or licensed daycares. The bill came out of committee with a do-not-pass recommendation, then was killed by the House 65-28.

It is a Class A misdemeanor in North Dakota for a sex offender to be on the property of a school, unless allowed by the school for specific purposes, such as voting.

Weigel said similar laws in other states have been ineffective and counterproductive in many cases. The laws push sex offenders out of many communities, creating situations where they have nowhere to live and end up registering as "homeless" or "transient" or stop complying with registration laws.

"The states that have passed laws such as that have found that it has caused greater problems because their registration compliance drops drastically," Weigel said.

Iowa law once prohibited all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, park, daycares and other places children congregate. However, the Iowa Legislature changed the law earlier this year, making it apply only to offenders against children in cases not involving consensual acts between teens close in age. Prior to the law's change, it faced court challenges and complaints about sex offenders being banished from many neighborhoods, leaving them with few affordable housing options.

Similar laws in other states, such as California's voter-passed Proposition 83, also have been challenged by the courts, and the California Sex Offender Management Board noted in a 2008 report that the number of offenders registering themselves as "transient" had quadrupled since the passage of the law.

Groups such as the American Correctional Association, in a January 2007 resolution, and the Iowa County Attorneys Association, in a 2006 statement, have said there is no evidence that residency restrictions work in preventing sex offenders from reoffending.

Weigel said the current housing situation for many registered offenders in North Dakota is bad but would be made worse by laws further restricting residence locations. Strong registration laws that allow authorities to better track convicted sex offenders are more effective than laws regarding where offenders can and can't live, he said.

"People who have committed sexual offenses in the past are in our community, and we need to monitor them," he said. "And if we put in to law such strong restrictions that they decide no longer to comply, then we're kind of defeating our own purpose." ..Source.. by JENNY MICHAEL Bismarck Tribune