Why Sex Offender “Clustering” Happens, and Why Anti-Clustering Laws Make it Worse

For years, legislators have enacted Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (SORRs), prohibiting people on the registry from living within 1,000, 2,000, or even 2,500 feet of places where children congregate, such as schools, parks, playgrounds and daycares. These laws sound simple in theory, but in practice they leave only tiny slivers of land available for housing. The result is predictable: registrants “cluster” in the few remaining areas where they are legally allowed to live. The most infamous example was the Julia Tuttle Causeway encampment in Miami-Dade County. Harsh residency restrictions passed in the City of Miami Beach drove out the registrants to mainland Miami. When Miami passed their SORR, it drove them back. The result left almost no legal housing in either Miami Beach or Miami, forcing dozens of registrants to live under a bridge between the two cities. Media coverage was harsh, but the reality was this: people complied with the law the only way they could — by clustering in the only place where the law permitted them to exist. Ironically, many of the same lawmakers who championed residency restrictions later complained about the visible consequences they created.

The same problem spread throughout the State of Florida. Imagine City “A” enacts a 2,500-foot SORR. The exclusion zones overlap to the point where nearly all residential areas become off-limits. That leaves people with virtually nowhere to live in City A. Because housing is effectively banned in City A, people displaced by the law migrate to the nearest area where restrictions are not as severe — often the neighboring City “B”. When City B suddenly has a higher concentration of registrants, local officials and residents panic. In response, City B passes its own SORR to prevent what they see as the “dumping” of registrants in their community. This cycle repeats itself. Each new restriction shrinks the map further and pushes people into smaller and smaller corners. Because these small pockets of availability often exist only in industrial zones or because the limited number of residential units gets quickly consumed by the high demand from registrants, many are forced to live homeless in the area.

The latest development is that some counties are trying to solve the “clustering” problem with anti-clustering ordinances. Last month Putnam County passed a law barring registrants from living within 500 feet of one another. On its face, this may seem like a solution, but in reality it shrinks the already limited housing supply even further.

Let’s break down the Math…

A 500-foot buffer applies in every direction from a registrant’s property line. This is measured “as the crow flies” — a straight line across any terrain. Imagine drawing a circle with a 500-foot radius from the property line around one registrant’s home. That circle covers about 785,000 square feet, or 18 acres of land. Now imagine placing another registrant nearby, in the same area that used to be lawful. Together, two registrants block off nearly 36 acres of otherwise lawful housing area. If you want to visualize that, it’s 27 football fields.

As more registrants are placed in a county, these exclusion zones multiply like overlapping bubbles, consuming huge portions of the map. What SORRs did to housing availability (severely reduced it), anti-clustering laws erase it. Remember those 22 registrants who were displaced from the Putnam County trailer park in February? Well Putnam County would need to find an area equivalent to 4 times the size of Disney World for them to have a legal place to live – and that’s assuming there are no schools, parks, playgrounds or bus stops within 2500 feet of that area, or no other registrants already living there!

So getting back to the latest developments… Legislators who once championed residency restrictions are now decrying the clustering and rampant homelessness their own laws created. By doubling down with anti-clustering rules, they will only worsen the problem they claim to solve. When the legal map leaves nowhere else to go, registrants are pushed into homelessness, transience, or makeshift encampments — conditions that destabilize individuals and reduce public safety. Remember that registries and residency laws were sold to the public as tools for safety. Instead, it’s been a cycle of failure: one harmful law breeds another, each making reentry more difficult and communities less safe.

So what’s the path forward?

Restrictive housing laws don’t make communities safer, they create visible crises. Now, anti-clustering ordinances like Putnam County’s are just the next step down the same failed path. FAC is organizing a lawsuit to challenge the Putnam ordinance. We have to do it. It is important not only to address the legal and practical issues with that County’s ordinance, but to dissuade the “City B”s that neighbor Putnam from passing something similar. At the same time, we NEED you to check your County and City/Town/Village Commission meeting agendas every month to see if a SORR is on the agenda. We need to get ahead of these things proactively, rather than having to file suit after the fact.