Isn't this just lovely..Tent city for SO's....

mysticrose

The key to change... is to let go of fear
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What A bright idea...WTH....:confused:

Bridge Still Home For Miami Sex Offenders
by Greg Allen

All Things Considered, July 21, 2009 · State judges in Miami are being asked to mediate a dispute that involves the city, the state and a growing colony of sex offenders.

The colony is an encampment of tents and shacks under a Miami bridge that began when corrections officers began ordering offenders there a few years ago. The shantytown was created in response to local laws that restrict where sex offenders can live.

Now, local and state officials are trading charges about who's to blame for creating the situation and who should fix it.

Village Of Tents

It started more than two years ago — a few tents pitched under a bridge on Miami's Julia Tuttle Causeway. Today, it's a well-established shantytown. More than 80 people make their home under the bridge.

There are half a dozen wooden shacks, some with cooking and toilet facilities. It's a village of tents, campers and cars — also a dock with a few small rowboats. Shared generators provide power for a CD player — also to recharge cell phones and electronic monitoring units required for sex offenders on supervised release.

Homer Barclay came to live here a year and a half ago. Barclay was convicted of attempted sexual battery in 1992. Last year, after a parole violation, he says probation officers gave him just one option.

"They told me that I had to live up under the Julia Tuttle Causeway," says Barclay. "I said, 'How come I have to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway?' They said, 'If you want to go home, this is where you got to go.' "

Barclay has a driver's license issued to him at the time of his release. His address is listed as Julia Tuttle Causeway.

Like many of the sex offenders on supervised release, Barclay is required to be here between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. During the day, many of the felons leave for jobs or to visit their families.

On this day, Barclay was fishing.

"I'm not working because it's difficult to find a job. I went everywhere looking for a job. Woo, it's rough," Barclay says. "Right now, I'm hungry, you know what I'm saying? I need a bath. I'm fishing, as you see, to try to survive. We just want to do what they want us to do. We just want our life back. That's all we want."

Whose Problem?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106689642
 
What a great idea....Lets put a bunch of SO's together ! I am speechless ! Why are these officials encouraging this. I just dont know what to say...
 
I see way too many problems here! Car batteries to charge electronic monitoring devices?! (How do you keep track of a bunch of people living in tents anyhow?) Groups of sex offenders sharing stories, ideas, fantasies, and anger about having to live as homeless people. Not being able to bathe, where do they go to the bathroom?! I could go on and on here. I don't get it! I see mutiny coming, lol!
 
Deal could see Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offenders rehoused
After three years, county officials are accelerating efforts to shut down and move a colony of convicted sex offenders living under a Miami causeway.

The makeshift encampment of convicted sex offenders beneath Miami's Julia Tuttle Causeway has more than doubled since its creation more than a year ago. Inhabitants claim there's no where else they can live.

BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com

Facing growing criticism over 70 registered sex offenders living in squalid conditions under a Julia Tuttle Causeway bridge, Miami-Dade officials and homeless advocates say they are working to relocate them to housing.

In the first step, eight camp dwellers will be moved to a private apartment building in South Miami-Dade in coming days, and officials are looking for a bigger place for the remaining people to be housed, said Ronald Book, chairman of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust, who is leading the effort.

``Everybody is moving in a positive direction, but we're not where we need to be,'' Book said of the drive toward a permanent solution for the encampment, the target of mounting criticism at home and unflattering portrayals across the world.

Book declined to discuss possible locations, but parties familiar with the search said one venue under consideration is the old North Dade Detention Center, a county jail near the Golden Glades interchange and Miami Gardens that has been vacant since it closed in September 2007. The county has tried unsuccessfully to sell the building.

Some of those living under the bridge said late Tuesday night that they were skeptical of Book's latest plan.

Homer Barkley, 45, said he would be worried if he lived under the same roof as other sex offenders. ``I have done my time for what they said I did. Now I want the chance to lead a normal life,'' Barkley said.

The Julia Tuttle encampment primarily houses registered sex offenders, mostly men, who cannot find residences elsewhere. That's because a host of county and city laws prohibit them from living within 2,500 feet of where children congregate -- including schools, parks and day care facilities.

(snipped)

http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/1151865.html
 
I see way too many problems here! Car batteries to charge electronic monitoring devices?! (How do you keep track of a bunch of people living in tents anyhow?) Groups of sex offenders sharing stories, ideas, fantasies, and anger about having to live as homeless people. Not being able to bathe, where do they go to the bathroom?! I could go on and on here. I don't get it! I see mutiny coming, lol!


I agree Merc7- a very stupid idea. Now out in the desert, alone, all together where they can't go anywhere and get no perks is where they belong, if not behind bars.

This is a tent ready to explode......

Goz
 
I agree Merc7- a very stupid idea. Now out in the desert, alone, all together where they can't go anywhere and get no perks is where they belong, if not behind bars.

This is a tent ready to explode......

Goz

They are still citizens, and they have rights. If the city is going to make ordinances barring them from living near children, then the city should have some housing options available that are away from children.
 
Gitmo is going to empty soon, I say we ship them all there. Like the old leper colonies....
 

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