MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The sparkling blue waters off Miami's Julia Tuttle Causeway look as if they were taken from a postcard. But the causeway's only inhabitants see little paradise in their surroundings. Five men -- all registered sex offenders convicted of abusing children -- live along the causeway because there is a housing shortage for Miami's least welcome residents. "I got nowhere I can go!" says sex offender Rene Matamoros, who lives with his dog on the shore where Biscayne Bay meets the causeway. The Florida Department of Corrections says there are fewer and fewer places in Miami-Dade County where sex offenders can live because the county has some of the strongest restrictions against this kind of criminal in the country. Florida's solution: house the convicted felons under a bridge that forms one part of the causeway. The Julia Tuttle Causeway, which links Miami to Miami Beach, offers no running water, no electricity and little protection from nasty weather. It's not an ideal solution, Department of Corrections Officials told CNN, but at least the state knows where the sex offenders are. Nearly every day a state probation officer makes a predawn visit to the causeway. Those visits are part of the terms of the offenders' probation which mandates that they occupy a residence from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. But what if a sex offender can't find a place to live? That is increasingly the case, say state officials, after several Florida cities enacted laws that prohibit convicted sexual offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, parks and other places where children might gather. "Because of those restrictions, because there are many places that children congregate, because of 2,500 feet, that's almost half a mile, that's a pretty long way when you are talking about an urban area like Miami, so it isn't surprising that we say we are trying but we don't have a place for these people to live in," Grant said. For several of the offenders, the causeway is their second experience at homelessness. Some of them lived for months in a lot near downtown Miami until officials learned that the lot bordered a center for sexually abused children. Trudy Novicki, executive director of Kristi House, said the offender's presence put the center's children at risk. "It was very troublesome to learn that across the street there are people who are sex offenders that could be a danger to our children," she said. Source: CNN Goosey's Gabbings... Awww...poor babies. They got no where to go? Awwww....perhaps they should have kept their willies in their knickers whenever they saw someone under 12. I have no remorse for those who have been proven and admitted to these types of crimes.
technorati tags:news, odd, bizarre, weird, offbeat, offbeat-news, quirky, miami, florida, pedophiles, housing-shortage, creepy, strange Blogged with Flock Labels: bizarre, creepy, florida, housing shortage, miami, news, odd, offbeat, offbeat news, pedophiles, quirky, strange, weird |
