Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Lack of housing forcing high volume of sex offenders into metro neighborhoods

February 21, 2011

St. Paul, Minn. — Many released sex offenders find housing in the Twin Cities -- specifically in north Minneapolis and east St. Paul, and it's become a concern for some of the people who already live there.

Next month, judges may permanently release the first two sex offenders from civil commitment in Minnesota, adding to the existing population of sex offenders who make their home in communities around the state.

The Phillips neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of sex offenders in the state. 

A 2010 Hennepin County report said six level three sex offenders, the most dangerous classification, live there.

Joani Essenberg lives in the East Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis, in the 55404 ZIP code. Essenberg's two kids wait on the corner for the bus every weekday.

"My high school kids stand outside a level three sex offender's house on one corner," Essenberg said. "And then diagonally, on that corner, there's another level three sex offender that lives there."
"Hennepin County ends up absorbing too many of [sex offenders] and that also means they end up absorbing the financial and community resources involved in housing them."
- Sarah Walker, 180 Degrees

Essenberg said it's not fair that Hennepin and Ramsey County absorb the largest concentration of sex offenders when they're already dealing with other issues.

"We're dealing with school achievement issues, we're dealing poverty, we're dealing with unemployment, we're dealing with housing issues, and now we're also dealing with sex offenders?" she said. "That feels like our plate is a little too full."

Concentrations of sex offenders like the one in the Phillips neighborhood happen for many reasons. When they're released, many cities bar ex-offenders from living near their victims or near schools. Many municipalities and counties take those restrictions even farther.

Another big factor is the difficulty finding affordable housing. The state only helps sex offenders with their first month's rent, meaning many end up in low-income neighborhoods.

"People won't rent to you, so that when you find a few that do, you tend to all go there because at least you have a place to stay so at least you don't get sent back," said Patrick, a level two sex offender whose real name has been withheld for this story.

Patrick was sent back to jail when he couldn't find housing -- a condition of probation. As a result, he risked being reclassified as a level three offender.

"I just did 35 days for being homeless," he said. "I took a risk of going up another level; every time you get put back in there you have to restart all over again."

Last summer, there were 89 level three sex offenders living in Hennepin County. Thirteen level three sex offenders said they were living at a homeless shelter, and nine others gave their address as city hall and were also likely homeless.

Sarah Walker is chief operating officer of 180 Degrees, a Minneapolis nonprofit that runs ex-offender programs. She said communities that are home to more sex offenders should also get more resources.

"Hennepin County ends up absorbing too many of them and that also means they end up absorbing the financial and community resources involved in housing them," Walker said. "I think that is something that should be considered in the long term, is how resources are allocated to counties who absorb more of the offenders."

But with the state in a deep deficit, resources are scarce. State Sen. Linda Berglin, chair of the Senate Health, Human Services and Corrections Budget Division, said lawmakers should focus on creating more affordable housing and employment opportunities for sex offenders.

"I don't think trying to create more restrictions on what people can do or whether they can get out or not; I don't think those would be a good idea," Berglin said. "That likely would trigger a lawsuit and we could end up having bigger problems."

Meanwhile, there's little evidence that concentrating many sex offenders in one community places a greater danger on its residents. A study by the Minnesota Department of Corrections found no correlation between where sex offenders live and whether they reoffend.

That's because those who do reoffend, do so most often with people they know, including family.
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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
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What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
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I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”