Ron Book and his Trust could be in serious trouble, if, the source of his funding is FEDERAL HUD money. Federal HUD funding is not allowed to be used for most sex offenders: SEE HERE.2-26-2010 Florida:
The make-shift shantytown under the Julia Tuttle Causeway -- once home to more than 100 sex offenders -- is finally being dismantled.
The people living under the bridge have been a major source of controversy for years, stirring up political debate over where sex offenders should be allowed to live after their release from prison.
On Friday, a handful of residents -- not all of them sex offenders -- wandered amid the piles of wood, mattresses, empty tin cans and shredded tents that was once home to the excommunicated community.
In recent days, the shacks have been torn down, as officials with the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust slowly relocate the offenders to apartments, motels and trailer parks with promises that their rent will be paid for up to six months.
``They are moving people out of here left and right,'' said Terry Morton, a sex offender who has lived in a camper parked in the bushes for about a year.
He said they are talking about relocating him to a campground, and others have been moved into local apartments and motels.
Still, as homeless people are moved out, others move in.
Liza, a homeless woman for the past six years, arrived a couple of weeks ago, hoping that she, like the others, could get more stable housing offered by Miami-Dade officials. She filed her paperwork earlier in the week.
``I'm ecstatic,'' said Liza, who is not a sex offender.
But she and others also worry about how they are going to pay the rent after the six-month grant period is over.
The homeless enclave grew as local municipalities approved strict residency requirements that leave sex offenders with few, if any, places to live.
Under 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 has stricter requirements -- a 2,500-foot ban.
Miami Beach's law, for example, prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school, bus stop, park, playground ``and other places where children can congregate.''
In January, Miami-Dade commissioners passed a sex offender ordinance that repeals more than 24 different sex offender laws enacted by municipalities within the county's borders. The new law creates one standard that commissioners hope will balance the need to protect children while still giving housing options to sex offenders and predators.
The ordinance also creates a new provision that supporters say is a more workable and realistic solution to protecting children: child-safety zones.
Under the child-safety zones, sex offenders are prohibited from loitering within 300 feet of where children congregate. In other words, it restricts sex offenders from being near children, but doesn't leave them homeless.
Currently, about 30 sexual offenders still live under the causeway, mostly in thin tents and cardboard boxes. In most cases, the sex offenders were placed under the bridge upon their release from prison by the state Department of Corrections. ..Source.. JULIE BROWN
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