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Bridge Dwelling Sex Offenders Given The Boot

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Feb 4, 2008 7:52 am US/Eastern

Bridge Dwelling Sex Offenders Given The Boot

MIAMI (CBS4) ― Sex offenders living under a bridge linking Miami to Miami Beach have been given the boot by the state. The men took up the makeshift residence under the Julia Tuttle Causeway after a Miami-Dade county ordinance passed in 2005 made it illegal for convicted sex offenders to live within 2,500 feet of schools.

They said they were unable to find affordable housing that did not violate the ordinance.
 
"We're being proactive by giving them more time to move," said state Corrections Department spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. The men were given until 9 a.m. Monday morning to find other accommodations.

Last week, parole officers have passed out information on alternative accommodations -- most hundreds of miles away from Miami.

Bridge resident Juan Carlos Martin doesn't know where to go.

"What are we supposed to do," Martin asked. "We had a nice place going here... It's not a perfect situation. We have no running water, but we had it set up like home, like a community."

The eviction will "ultimately boomerang on the city" and cause offenders to go underground, said Ray Taseff of the American Civil Liberties Union in Miami, which plans to help the group.

"This is the government that created homelessness," Taseff said, "and now the government is effectively trying to banish them from the community."

Last month, however, an owner of land under a Fort Lauderdale bridge evicted residents living there, and a state Department of Corrections spokeswoman said Saturday: "We have every indication this is going to happen statewide."

(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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