Sex offenders now on the street
I got a call this week from one of the child molesters who had been staying at the Ramada Inn in Ukiah at state expense. (See our story Sept. 2.) When I talked to him Thursday he told me that all six of the sex offenders - all child molesters - who had been staying there had been kicked out as soon as our story hit the street.
This man, whose name I agreed to leave out, is from Vallejo. I said that confused me since I thought that parolees were sent back to their home counties. The man - who admitted he had molested his niece - said when he was released to Vallejo, the father of the girl he had molested threatened to kill him so the state agreed to move him elsewhere. Ukiah seemed like a good place. Especially if the state is paying for your $79 per night hotel room, I guess.
The man was talking to me from a cell phone in Grace Hudson Park where he was wondering what to do next. He had no place to go, he said.
"I don't know how to sleep under a damned bridge," he said.
He wasn't' mad at me for writing the story, but said he felt it was important that people know that because of it he was now homeless. And because of things like Jessica's Law, which prohibits sex offenders from living certain distances from schools and parks - although he was sitting in one - there was no other hotel he could go to in town and he had no transportation out of town.
I asked him whether he had family that could take him in. He said they were mostly in Vallejo. He said he had a wife, two sons and six step-children but wasn't allowed to live at home - and he is in good standing with his wife, he says - since there are children there.
While he admitted to molesting his niece he seemed to want some kind of credit for admitting to it and said he would never do it again (how many say that?)
"I don't know how these other guys feel," he said, referring to the other five Ramada Inn tenants all now on the street, "whether they feel remorse. I'm not going to do it again. I had sex with my niece but there was no evidence. I could have fought it but I didn't. If you only knew what I went through. I'm not a threat to anyone's children. But now I'm homeless."
The homeless factor is exactly why the state was paying to put these guys up in a hotel. They figure it's better to know where they are than to have them wandering around a community. I agree with that. But what I say is this. The state needs to figure out what to do with these convicts before they are paroled. Sorry but it seems to me that if a sex offender has no real, permanent place to live, then parole should be off the table. The state admitted in our story that spending $2,300 a month to put these guys up wasn't the best idea. I agree. (And I've heard that the state may have changed its policy quickly after getting my phone call asking about these six offenders being put up locally.)
I don't agree that backing away from that policy, but letting these ex-cons wander the streets in hope some housing agency is going to subsidize their rent is the next option. How would the taxpayers feel if we did a story saying some poor family was homeless because the last funding for subsidized housing in our community went to a homeless child molester?
Assemblywoman Patty Berg, Sen. Pat Wiggins, Sens. Boxer and Feinstein, Gov. Schwarzenegger, listen up. Here's a big problem that needs a big solution.
We have, as a society, basically said that child molesters never pay their debt to society. We make sure we know where they are at all times, We have limited the places they can live. All to the good. If our laws also say we have to let them out of prison, then we as a society must find a way to house them. Letting them wander our streets is no better option than paying outrageous rents in local motels - and, by the way not telling anyone they're there.
I have a message from a second child molester who I have not reached yet. I suspect he has the same complaint. I'll let you know.