Jun 26, 2009 7:56 am US/Eastern
Sex Offenders Set Up Tent City Around Julia Tuttle
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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A makeshift tent city of sex predators has popped up under and around the Julia Tuttle Causeway
CBS
Miami is the Magic City but it can't make the growing number of homeless sexual predators living under and around the Julia Tuttle Causeway disappear.
Some 70 convicted sex predators are now calling the area home, and many of them are in tents by the bay which are visible to passing motorists.
Miami-Dade Homeless Trust chairman Ron Book told CBS4's Michael Williams, "I have visited with many of these predators whose conduct I find reprehensible but I do not sanction homelessness and the (state) Department of Corrections has created a homeless village under that bridge."
The Homeless Trust says the state backed away at the final moment last spring from an agreement that would have established guidelines for finding shelter for sexual predators upon their release from prison. That is no easy task given rules keeping them at least 2,500 feet from schools and daycare centers in Miami-Dade. It's a tough problem, but it's a problem that officials say corrections officials cannot walk away from.
Ron Book is also one of the state's most influential political lobbyists and his rolodex is huge. He hints at tapping it to apply pressure so that a growing community problem might be solved.
Book summed it up this way. "We're not saying solve it by yourself," he told Williams, "We are prepared to help you solve it but don't give us ownership of your issue. This is a DOC issue."
The tug of war goes on then, as all sides fight turf wars over a problem increasingly in plain view and in search of a compromise solution.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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