The Dobbs Wire: Heartless!

Heartless:  A homeless encampment under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Florida became a national and international news story nearly a decade ago.  The camp formed because banishment laws had pushed individuals on the sex offense registry into homelessness.  More politely known as “residency restrictions,” such laws do nothing to improve public safety while creating a human rights mess.  Forced to relocate over the years, once again authorities are demanding that homeless registrants move.  Where?  There’s “almost nowhere to go.”  Arrests are threatened.  Will this awfulness ever stop?   Solidarity to those fighting to survive on the streets, their allies at Florida Action Committee, legal eagles Val Jonas, and Jeffrey Hearne of Legal Services.  The Intercept’s Zaid Jilani has a detailed report, and the Miami Herald has an update – a last minute reprieve.  Have a look.   –Bill Dobbs, The Dobbs Wire  [email protected]

The Intercept | May 5, 2018

Homeless Sex Offenders Are Getting Kicked Out of Their South Florida Encampment. Now What?

By Zaid Jilani

Excerepts:  For the past four years, dozens of homeless sex offenders have lived in tents in a makeshift encampment along a set of railroad tracks in Hialeah, a city in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.   In March, Mayor Carlos Giménez gave those living there 45 days to vacate. That deadline is Sunday; if they refuse to leave by then, police may be able to arrest them on the spot.  Florida’s Miami-Dade County has among the strictest residency restrictions for sex offenders of anywhere in America, thanks to a legislative change made in 2005.

The problem is, they have almost nowhere to go.  There are severe restrictions on where in the county sex offenders can live, said Gail Colletta, president of the Florida Action Committee, which works to reform sex offender laws.  There is little evidence that these laws are improving overall public safety, said J.J. Prescott, a University of Michigan law professor who has studied the laws’ impact.

Many of its laws governing residential choices for sex offenders come from the advocacy of a single man: Ron Book…The resulting displacement in many locales, and the proliferation of homeless encampments full of sex offenders led Newsweek to dub Book as “the lobbyist who put sex offenders under a bridge.” MORE:

https://theintercept.com/2018/05/05/homeless-sex-offenders-florida-miami-dade/

Miami Herald | May 4, 2018

Homeless sex offenders living in tents outside Hialeah say they have nowhere to go

By Douglas Hanks

The cluster of tents housing dozens of sex offenders popped up several years ago outside Hialeah, and Miami-Dade hasn’t yet managed to find a way to empty it.  An eviction appeared imminent this week, as county officials warned residents they needed to clear out of the roadside refuge by Sunday, May 6 — even though Miami-Dade’s homeless shelters won’t accept them.

Then came a last-minute reprieve as county attorneys faced a threatened legal challenge to an ordinance passed late last year targeting the encampment off Northwest 71st Street that’s the registered address of 235 registered sex offenders. A letter from a top county official on Friday said no action to disband the camp would be taken until May 10 at the earliest.  The people living in the encampment are involuntarily homeless,” wrote Legal Services lawyer Jeffrey Hearne. Thanks to a 2,500-foot restriction on living near schools, “they are prohibited from living in most residential areas of the County.”

The person who runs the county’s homeless efforts is the volunteer chairman of Miami-Dade’s homeless board: lobbyist Ron Book. He’s also a crusader for tough laws for sexual offenders. His daughter, state Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and rose to political prominence from her activism on the issue. The county law regulating where sex offenders can live is named after her.  MORE:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article210509304.html