Shelters prohibit registered sex offenders access even in sub-zero temperatures. Lawmakers nationally fail to resolve this issue.. We urge folks to contact your local lawmakers and shelters, and ask them to resolve this issue before another freezes to death. Here, not even an offer of help to other facilities, whats wrong with these folks?1-8-2010 Florida:
Clad in a thin hooded sweat shirt, Terry Norton trembles uncontrollably behind the wheel of his beat up Chevy.
His gas tank is empty, but he can't muster the strength to walk the two miles to buy fuel. With South Florida in the grip of a record-setting cold snap, he and other sex offenders and predators who live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway huddle in their cars, nylon tents and wooden shacks.
``We need help,'' Norton said, teeth chattering.
There's little relief in the forecast. The National Weather Service reports temperatures will move into the 70s on Friday but that a strong Arctic cold front is expected to arrive Friday night bringing cold temperatures -- again.
Those living under the Tuttle say they've been forgotten -- save for a few souls who delivered blankets and generators a few weeks ago.
This week, they say they were turned away by the county's homeless shelters because they are sex offenders. Under state law, sex offenders can't live within 1,000 feet of schools, day-care centers, parks or other areas where kids congregate. Miami-Dade has stricter requirements -- a 2,500-foot ban.
After six days in a row of bone-chilling temperatures, they have run out of gas for the generators. Some say it's just as well; few of them have space heaters.
Ron Book, head of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust, concedes that as sex offenders and predators, they aren't able to stay in the shelters.
``They could probably search out some hotel, but they need resources for that,'' Book said Thursday.
The county has had workers out there handing out blankets, he said, but there's little else he can do that he hasn't already tried.
Finding landlords who will accept them is increasingly difficult, and some -- though not all -- of the offenders refuse to leave.
Depending on whom you ask, from 34 to 70 sex predators and offenders still live under or near the bridge. Book has placed 40-45 of them so far, and he says his agency will continue its effort.
``I feel bad, but they should talk to their probation officers -- they are the ones who put them there,'' Book said.
Later this month, the Miami-Dade County Commission will consider an ordinance that may ease the boundary that prohibits sex offenders and predators from living 2,500 feet from where children congregate.
The new ordinance will instead create child safety zones, whereby convicted molesters would be banned from loitering 300 feet from schools and child-care centers. It would also negate the hodgepodge of local laws that vary from city to city in the county.
Wilson, a resident who wouldn't give his last name, lives in a tent on the south side of the bridge.
``The wind whips through here. We thought they would move us out but they said no,'' he said.
Volunteers from Pure Mercy, a faith-based charitable group from Pinellas, visited at Christmas, handing out grills, a new generator, gasoline, food and clothing.
Executive Director David Lind said it was the third time they visited, and residents now think of him and his wife as if they were their mother and father.
``I don't think anybody deserves to be punished for their entire life,'' Lind said. ``These guys did what they did, there are very few who don't admit what they did. In essence, it seems like they are being punished by society by being stuck in a corner.''
Forecasters say it's highly unlikely the weather will be life threatening for those living under bridges or on the street.
Book, who was in a Super Bowl Host Committee meeting Thursday morning, said that in the past, during hurricane evacuations, the offenders have been offered beds in jails, but they've declined to stay there.
Wilson, a sex offender who served 18 years in prison, said they were told that emergency shelter is offered to them only during a hurricane.
``Even if I leave, how will I live? I have no job and no car to get there,'' said Wilson.
Wilson knows that many people don't feel sorry for him and the other sex offenders and predators; he concedes that some of their crimes are unspeakable.
But after spending nearly two decades behind bars, he says he feels more ostracized than cold-blooded killers.
``How is this making society safer?'' he asked, pointing to the monitor he must wear so that authorities know where he is every day.
Many of them just remove the monitors or let them run out of power, so that they can go into hiding to find warmth, he said.
As a gust of wind blows off the intercoastal waters, Wilson sips his cold coffee and considers what he will do to keep warm the next few days.
``It's been so cold that at times it seems like the water is standing still.'' ..Source.. JULIE BROWN
1 comment:
While I feel for these individuals, I don't think braving 70 degree weather is as much an issue as this article makes it out to be. It's hard to muster up sympathy for these circumstances when there are offenders in other states having to live through near freezing and sub-zero temperatures without access to shelter. Such individuals would make a better example of the problem homeless offenders face than someone who has to live in an environment slightly below what most people keep their air-conditioning temperature at.
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