Legislators Propose New Deadline For Homeless Sex Offender Housing Program

Suffolk County Legislators voted to move forward with a proposal to set a new deadline for implementing a housing program for homeless sex offenders, despite missing an October deadline.

The legislature's Health and Human Services Committee approved of setting a new Jan. 15, 2011 deadline for the county's Department of Social Services to enter a contract to create a shelter system to house homeless sex offenders with a private company at Thursday's Hauppauge meeting.

The vote aimed to end a three-month stalemate between the legislature versus DDS (run by the executive branch) and the County Attorney's office. The bill proposed by Legis. Edward Romaine, R-Center Moriches, was to appease the DSS and County Attorney's office who said the legislature had to vote again to approve a "new program" that had been received from the private contractor Community Housing Innovations - the reason an Oct. 15 deadline had come and gone, without any changes.

CHI's new program calls for creating approximately six shelters, or group homes, to house homeless sex offenders. Legis. Schneiderman, I-Montuak, said it was no small task in rallying support for this bill that would scatter these homes across Suffolk County into other legislative districts. He suggested no more than six homeless sex offenders per a house, and one per either a township or legislative district.

"You will have people coming out of the woodwork trying to block this from town supervisors right on down," said Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter

 At Thursday's meeting, Waleter strongly advocated restarting a countywide voucher program suggested by County Executive Steve Levy, that gave homeless sex offenders $90 per day for housing, then was discontinued by the legislature in the spring.

"I'm not as happy as I would have been with the voucher system," Walter said in an interview Thursday evening. "When they start to site these sex offender homes, I don't care if they're put in industrial areas. Industrial areas are surrounded by residential areas." 

The supervisor said he felt the voucher system would have fairly spread homeless sex offenders across the county without creating a group home that may cause problems, citing on Riverhead's West Main Street. Both Nassau and Westchester counties use similar systems.

"This will be a nightmare. When Legis. [Vivian] Villoria-Fisher tried to put a home for unwed mothers in her community - which was a CHI home as well - there was outrage. That was shut down," Walter said. 

Legislators tabled a resolution that proposed re-enactment of the voucher system, stating issues with keeping track of sex offenders and other issues. 

Furthermore, the new shelter system for housing homeless sex offenders contains no provision for the closure of the Riverside and Westhampton shelters. Two pieces of legislation that would have done so were tabled by the committee.

"We are in support of closing those trailers. We understand the burden on your communities, we have come up with a solution, the legislature has come up with a solution. The problem is that the plan has not been implemented," said Legis. Kate Browning, WF-Shirley.