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? While Florida temps may not cause one to freeze to death, the recent temps are more than any human should have to stay outside in 24/7!1-20-2010 Florida:
It seems as though everyone in Miami wants the cold weather to go away. Frankly, I’m starting to get annoyed by the growing number of complaints. There are homeless people out on the streets with no protection from the cold. What’s worse is that some of them are being turned away from shelters. How do you fathom?
This is what many homeless sex offenders in Miami have to deal with. Not only are they literally quarantined under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, but now even a night in a shelter to get away from the cold seems perfectly absurd. The Weather Channel reported low temperatures of 38 degrees on Jan. 9.
As the temperatures lowered and broke records last week, counties statewide opened emergency cold-weather shelters for the homeless. However, not all the homeless were welcome.
According to The Miami Herald, the homeless sex offenders, living under the causeway say they were turned away by the county’s homeless shelters due to strict laws imposed on sex offenders in Miami-Dade County.
Laws about where sex offenders are allowed to live (or do anything, really) vary from county to county and depend on the severity and nature of the crime for which the criminal was convicted. Under Florida state law, sex offenders can’t live within 1,000 feet of schools, child-care centers parks or other areas where kids congregate. Miami-Dade County, though, is stricter and places a 2,500-feet ban on its sex offenders.
To follow through with the law, the only place they can live in is under the Julia Tuttle Bridge. And here they are, trying to escape from the cooler breezes by the bay – being turned away from shelters on some of the coldest nights yet.
The law is clearly not on their side. Of course, many could easily say that they deserve this kind of treatment because they are dangerous criminals who prey on innocent children. Not all sex offenders are guilty of the same crime. Some sex offenders may be on the list for things like dating a minor. Yet, their crimes are not what we should be looking at.
These offenders have paid their time in jail. Because of the county’s strict restrictions surrounding where they can live after they serve their time, it is hard for them to find any place to live or even walk around.
The law forces them to cluster under highways like the Julia Tuttle. The law also forces shelters to ban them in near freezing temperatures. The law, with all its power and thirst for justice, has directly isolated them from healthy reintegration into society.
I understand that some sex offenders are responsible for heinous crimes. But I don’t understand how other types of criminals can come out of jail and live under restrictions a lot more lenient than those imposed on sex offenders. I wonder what the criminal records of the other homeless people in those shelters look like. It’s safe to assume that those who actually were let in were not your typical goody-two-shoes but they got in just fine.
There are 53,201 registered sex offenders in the entire state, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. For the registered sex offenders of Miami-Dade in particular, life seems to be a bit more troublesome.
By clustering former sex offenders and forcing them to live in unbearable conditions, the problem becomes bigger. It is shameful, disgusting and unjustified. ..Source.. Odette Barrientos/ Asst. Opinion Editor
1 comment:
This kind of treatment is courtesy of Govenor Charlie Crist and his money bag side kick Ron Book.
By the way, Ron Book is also the Chairman of the Miami Dade Homless Trust.
The Trust is not a direct service provider. Instead, it is responsible for the implementation of policy initiatives developed by the 27-member Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust Board, and the monitoring of contract compliance by agencies contracted with the County, through the Trust, for the provision of housing and services for homeless persons.
Yet this same Chairman is the one who has made it possible for sex offenders to have a WONDERFUL scenic view of the bay, by making sure they don't receive the same services as other homeless persons.
He does this by using his lobbyist position to influence the local politicians all while Governor Crist looks on with approval.
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