2-28-2011 Minnesota:
Minneapolis leaders want state lawmakers to stop the trend of concentrating Minnesota’s sex offenders in the city
Minneapolis is home to nearly half of all Level III sex offenders in Minnesota, even though the city’s population is only 7 percent of the state’s total.
Some of the city’s neighborhoods have a disproportionately high concentration of sex offenders. One zip code alone in North Minneapolis has 24 chronic sex offenders, more than in all of St. Paul.
Many others are homeless, and list addresses of Downtown Minneapolis shelters. The Minnesota Department of Corrections says they are known to spend their time on Downtown streets.
Studies show that Level III sex offenders have a low likelihood of repeating their crimes, but local officials say that concentrating them into small areas stresses communities and hurts property values. City leaders, including North Minneapolis Council Member Don Samuels (5th Ward), are asking that the Minnesota Legislature adopt a plan that disperses the sex offenders in a fair manner.
“If these guys are such a risk to society, they need to change the laws to incarcerate them longer. If they’re not that big of a risk to society, spread them out so it’s a level playing field and one community isn’t unduly burdened with them,” said Deb Wagner, a Jordan neighborhood resident whose 55411 zip code has the most sex offenders in the state.
Why does Minneapolis bear such an uneven burden? It’s a complex problem involving opportunistic landlords, a lack of local control, sex offender networking and the location of community resources.
Residents and leaders are worried that tight state budgets will lead to the release of more sex offenders that eventually end up in Minneapolis.
North side home to most offenders
Level III sex offenders are, by definition, the riskiest of sex offenders. Their public profiles posted on the Minnesota Department of Corrections website often show histories of using weapons so they can rape and sexually assault women and children.
There are 229 released Level III sex offenders living in Minnesota. Of those, 107 live in Hennepin County, with all but five living in Minneapolis.
North Minneapolis is home to about 50 of those offenders. About 25 live Downtown and 19 live in Southeast. Only four live in Southwest and one offender lives in Northeast.
Dennis Wagner, Deb’s husband, said North Minneapolis neighbors have become more and more aware of the problem in recent years. He and others have become active on the issue, testifying to the state Legislature and meeting with officials.
He and neighbor Troy Kester put together a spreadsheet of Minneapolis zip codes and their sex offenders in comparison to the rest of Hennepin County. They found that some Minneapolis zip codes house 400 to 3,200 percent of what they should, based on the county’s population of 1.1 million.
“It’s kind of that dirty little secret that appears to have been going on for a while and all of a sudden some of the locals started looking and saying, ‘God, we seem to be getting a lot of these Level 3 [notification] flyers around here,’” Dennis Wagner said.
Sex offenders, since 1991, have been required by state law to register their addresses with local law enforcement. Local law enforcement is then required to notify the community, which usually consists of a public meeting and flyers sent to neighbors.
The DOC also identified all Level III sex offenders on its website.
The road to Minneapolis
When a Level III sex offender is to be released from lockup, it’s up to him to come up with a plan for where he will live while he serves the remainder of his sentence in the community, said Tom Merkel, director of Hennepin County Community Corrections.
Merkel said Minneapolis has a few halfway houses, which are attractive to those on parole. Once they live in a halfway house, sex offenders often become connected to the community and will often choose to stay in Minneapolis once their parole has ended.
Because it’s the offender’s decision, Minneapolis is housing sex offenders that didn’t live or commit their crimes anywhere near the city.
In 2010, 20 of the city’s 89 sex offenders at that time were from outside Hennepin County. They came from counties as close as Anoka to as far as Crow Wing and St. Louis. One even came from Wisconsin.
Merkel said the county has appealed some parolees’ placement plans to the state, but said the appeals are usually denied.
It’s important to note that about 60 percent of Minneapolis registered sex offenders are off parole and the county or state has no say in where they can live, although offenders must still notify law enforcement of their residence.
Merkel said a network exists amongst locked up sex offenders, and that extends into finding a home after their release.
Samuels is also a resident of the Jordan neighborhood, and he’s been outspoken about the high level of sex offenders is his ward.
He said landlords in Minneapolis target sex offenders as tenants because they are required to have jobs.
“There are landlords who will only rent to sex offenders,” Samuels said. “It’s a source of guaranteed employed tenants who are under supervision and have a certain amount of predictability in their lives.”
Samuels said that when the county proposes putting a sex offender in a suburban community, residents will fill the high school gymnasium in protest. In North Minneapolis, he said, the community is fatigued from fighting drugs, violence and prostitution.
Perception, not crime, drives down property values
The Wagners have lived in their same home for 26 years and they’re raising their daughter, a freshman in high school, in the neighborhood.
“We’re raising our daughter here and if we felt it was unsafe, we wouldn’t be here,” Deb said.
But Deb Wagner is also a real estate agent and does most of her business in North Minneapolis. When potential buyers get their hands on a real estate contract, they are notified that they should check the area for sex offenders on the DOC Web site.
“It’s mentioned several times in real estate contracts” she said. “For people to disregard that, it takes somebody pretty unusual. Unless they’re not super paranoid about that, but who isn’t when you mention sex offenders? Especially if you’re planning to move into a community with your children.”
The recidivism rate for sex offenders is 12 percent, which is lower than for other criminals, according to Minnesota Department of Corrections 2007 study.
“It creates a perception that this is not a safe place to live,” Wagner said.
City wants laws enforced
The state is struggling with budget deficits — $6.2 billion this biennium — and incarcerating sex offenders at $300 per day is costly. To have those same offenders living under supervised release costs only $90 per day, per offender, according to the DOC.
The DOC says it may release an additional seven sex offenders within the year.
The city of Minneapolis has tried to combat the problem locally, but found that it is illegal for the city to make ordinances restricting where sex offenders can live.
For the last few years, the city has listed the issue as a priority on its legislative agenda. While new sex offender laws are adopted frequently at the state capitol, Minneapolis has not gotten its wish.
“Sex offenders seem to get a lot of attention at the Legislature, maybe not always focused on things we hope they would focus on,” said City Council Member Elizabeth Glidden (8th Ward), who chairs the committee that drafts the legislative agenda.
Local officials say the solution is twofold. The state needs to come up with a better plan for placement of sex offenders and clarify and enforce language in state statutes that prohibits high concentrations of sex offenders.
According to state law, “The agency responsible for the offender’s supervision shall take into consideration the proximity of the offender’s residence to that of other level III offenders and proximity to schools and, to the greatest extent feasible, shall mitigate the concentration of level III offenders and concentration of level III offenders near schools.”
Samuels would like that law enforced in Minneapolis.
The Wagners hope so, too.
“Other people don’t want to pay to have these guys locked up,” Dennis Wagner said. “Then put them in your backyard too. Share the pain, share the gain.” ..Source.. Nick Halter
February 28, 2011
Finding new homes for sex offenders
August 11, 2010
Sex offenders as neighbors a realty factor
A close review of the Virginia Study reveals it is not the presence of the former offender that causes home values to be reduced, it is the Realtors in the way they value homes w/former offender nearby. Assessor's value is never changed. It appears Realtor's have found a way -using fear like politicians do- to get sellers to lower the selling price of homes; such is actually revealed in the study in question. Also, notice in the article below, the Realtor uses a iPhone App to show sellers and maybe buyers as well, where former offenders live in proximity to the home for sale; they are causing the fear problem. The studies show the result of the actions of the realtor actions.8-11-2010 Virginia:
Richmond, Va. -- What's more important than a brick exterior, a walk-in closet or a fireplace if you're in the market to buy a house in rural Virginia?
The assurance that the house is not located close to a registered sex offender, according to a study by three Longwood University professors.
Being located within one-tenth of a mile of a sex offender reduces a home's value by nearly 9 percent, according to the study's findings. And the same house takes as much as 10 percent longer to sell.
"We expected that homes would be negatively impacted, but the magnitude was striking," said Scott Wentland, visiting assistant professor of economics at Longwood.
Wentland was joined in the study by Ray Brastow, associate professor of economics, and Bennie D. Waller, chairman of the department of accounting, economics, finance and real estate.
They studied rural areas based on information from the Multiple Listing Service in Lynchburg for their report on the effects of the federal Sexual Offender Act, known as Megan's Law.
Since 1994, people convicted of sex crimes have been required to notify local law enforcement about their residence and any change of address. That information has become publicly available, allowing anyone to see whether an offender lives nearby.
Lacy Williams, a Realtor with Joyner Fine Properties in Richmond, said she has an application on her smartphone that allows her to show the list of offenders to prospective clients.
"There are sex offenders almost everywhere," she said. "I have been in situations where young, first-time buyers like a house and parents who live elsewhere look at the list and tell the children not to buy the house."
The study shows that people will pay an average $14,826 more for a house if it's not located near a registered sex offender.
And they will sacrifice as much as 295 square feet in a house if they can be assured of not living near a registered offender.
The study looked at distances from 0.1 mile to 1 mile. A house located 1 mile from an offender saw a 4.5 percent drop in price compared with comparable houses.
Similar studies in the Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla., areas have shown less dramatic results -- about half as many as the Longwood report. However, those studies involved metropolitan areas, not rural.
The concept of a neighborhood in rural areas may encompass larger areas than in more densely populated areas, explaining the different results, Brastow said.
Brastow said the findings are important for sellers and buyers trying to determine fair market values. ..Source.. Carol Hazard | TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
October 17, 2008
WI- Home values not hurt by predators
6-3-2003 Wisconsin:
No evidence found that prices suffer over the long term after sex offender moves into area
On Milwaukee's N. 51st St., signs of hostility pierce the front yards for blocks - a collective unwelcome mat for neighborhood newcomer and sexual predator Billy Lee Morford.
"Move Him Out of Here!" "Get the Hell Out!" "Go Live With the Judge" and "Who's next?Saddam!" were among the greetings for Morford, a serial child molester who moved to 6535 N. 51st on Monday, courtesy of the state Department of Health and Family Services.
In Barb Grepo's opinion, only one sign wouldn't draw much interest in her modest, 1950s-era ranch-house neighborhood these days: a for-sale sign.
"My husband and I were thinking of moving in the next few years," Grepo said. "But who wants to buy a home four doors from a child molester?"
Her neighbor across the street, Tracy Salinel, agreed.
"We were told our property values have gone down already. I didn't think it would happen that quick, but it did," she said. But after tracking down the source of that "fact," she learned it had come from a newspaper columnist's wisecrack.
"Oh," Salinel said.
Anxiety about public safety and property values is typical of the 34 sexual predator placements statewide that preceded this one, officials say. They consider the fear and anger understandable but misguided given that none of the sexual predators identified under the 1994 law has committed any new crimes.
"Since the goal was to protect the public from further offenses . . . I'd call this a success," said Deborah J. McCulloch, who oversees the state's supervised-release program for these felons.
What's harder to gauge is the effect on property values. While there may well be a short-term shock, there appears to be no evidence that home values decline in those neighborhoods over the long term.
Rick Staff, general counsel to Wisconsin Realtors Association in Madison, said the value of homes is determined by a wide array of factors and it is difficult to determine with precision what effect a placement has.
"How would you track the impact of a population that's so mobile? And values are determined by location, amenities, proximity to public transportation and jobs, not by these transient problems," Staff said.
Neighbor admits 'overreaction'
The experience of a Madison neighborhood with Wisconsin's most notorious sex offender is illustrative. For five years, the state capital's southwest side was home to Gerald Turner - the man who sparked the sexual predator law.
Dubbed "the Halloween Killer" for the day in 1973 when he snatched, assaulted and killed 9-year-old Lisa French of Fond du Lac, Turner was moved in 1998 into a halfway house at 5706 Odana Road, on the edge of a commercial district bordering two residential enclaves.
Nearby residents reacted with fear and anger to the state Department of Corrections' decision to put Turner within blocks of their homes and children.
Kathy Vertz, Tess Roherty and others talked about moving to escape the damage that Turner's presence was expected to cause in their neighborhood.
Five years later, though, the neighbors have mellowed. "I think, on my part, it was an overreaction," Vertz said. "We didn't have any problems."
Turner lived uneventfully in the Foster Community Corrections Center, tucked behind a used car lot, until authorities discovered he had pornography on his computer. He was sent back to prison in April for violating his parole, and he will serve 15 more years of his original sentence.
In time, people adjusted to having the child killer in their neighborhood, to the point that he and the halfway house became an afterthought, Vertz said. The residents still don't like having a halfway house right down the street, but for the most part they have come to accept it, she said.
One reason may be that the "there goes the neighborhood" fears were unfounded. A check of City of Madison assessment records shows that home values just to the west and northwest of Turner's residence rose from $125,400 in 1998 to $168,900 today and that homes to the south and southeast rose from $154,900 to $210,000. In no year did values decline, reported Michael G. Kurth, the city's chief assessor. Homes near Turner's showed price appreciation levels similar to those farther away, he said.
"But Turner wasn't right in the middle of a residential area, like in Milwaukee's case. He was where there would have been a lot of eyes on him during the day, and no families right around him at night," Kurth said.
Madison residents, like those in many communities, have complained about the effect of property values when lawbreakers and the mentally impaired move in nearby, Kurth said. "But I can think of no specific cases where we made a change to property values based on that."
Indeed, Roherty's worries about the future of her neighborhood have changed. Now, rising property values and property taxes are more likely to drive her out of her home than all the sex offenders, drug offenders and other criminals staying in the Foster Center.
"I'm a widow, and it's awful hard to stay here," she said.
Neighbors organize
Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, Morford's neighbors have organized themselves and their elected officials in a crusade to get rid of him as soon as possible. He is the first sexual predator placed in the city. A court hearing on his placement is scheduled June 23 before Milwaukee Circuit Judge John Franke.
"There ought to be plenty of industrial areas, with an odd home here and there, that he can go," said Grepo, the neighbor. She and others believe the state should require sexual predators to live in areas where there are few residences.
Terry Marshall, the president and chief executive officer of Attic Correctional Services Inc., which runs the Foster Center where Turner lived and owns the house where Morford now lives, agrees with Grepo on this point. He said elected officials should pursue zoning changes to make it easier to place treatment centers and halfway houses in commercial and industrial areas. Old warehouses, manufacturing buildings or retail shops could be renovated to house criminals on parole or probation, he said.
That would spare elected officials from a lot of angry constituents in the years ahead, Marshall reasoned, because the numbers of sex offenders and drug offenders being released from prison to communities is going nowhere but up.
"We're going to have to look for folks to do some profiles-in-courage stuff here and say let's get serious. This is real. We have some re-entry issues here beyond anything we comprehended even a decade ago," Marshall said. "The rubber meets the road in the community."
Until that happens, Grepo said, her neighborhood's sign and lobbying campaign will continue unabated.
But Milwaukee Assessment Commissioner Mary Reavey and Staff, the Realtors' general counsel, said such an effort can backfire.
"Any neighborhood that gets a lot of negative attention, whether for burglaries, a sex offender moving in, people leaving garbage in the street, could see an impact on marketability for a short period of time," Staff said. "When those issues settle down, the market recovers."
Reavey pointed to Milwaukee's Story Hill, a west side neighborhood engaged in a sign war against expansion of nearby I-94.
"Go to Story Hill and you'll see all the signs - 'No Freeway Expansion,' 'Don't Ruin Our Neighborhood.' Story Hill has been a neighborhood of healthy value increases, sometimes double-digit. This year, there's been no increase in value," Reavey said. "You drive through a neighborhood and saw all these angry signs, what would you think? You'd say, 'Think I'll look somewhere else.' " ..News Source.. by MICHELE DERUS and TOM HELD
