Sex offender registry can result in homelessness

By Kelsey Turner . . . Cross, director of Oregon City-based nonprofit organization Free on the Outside, which provides housing and recovery for formerly incarcerated individuals, knows what strings to pull to get people housed. While working in Hillsboro west of Portland, he successfully sheltered people of all criminal backgrounds.

But those he turns away often have one thing in common: Their names are on Oregon’s Sex Offender Registry.

“I got housing for guys that committed murder — easy, no problem,” said Cross, 63. “Robbery, drug dealing, identity theft, almost anything, I could find 10 beds a day. I had a hard time finding one bed a week for someone with a sex offense.”

Recent proposals in Oregon and Washington aim to increase community notification when offenders move to an area. In Oregon, a bill introduced this year would have expanded the state’s public registry to include lower-level offenders. In Washington, proposed legislation would have required public notification and meetings before the state could make plans to house high-risk offenders in a community.  . . .

Nearly 5% of the people on Oregon’s Sex Offender Registry — about 1,500 — are homeless, according to Oregon State Police data. In Multnomah County, the rate is more than double, at 11%. Across the state border in Clark County, people on the registry experience homelessness at about 25 times the rate of the general population, according to an InvestigateWest analysis of county homelessness data. . . .

“This sort of ostracism and lack of opportunity winds up increasing the likelihood of somebody turning to crime,” said University of Michigan Law School Professor J.J. Prescott, who researches public safety effects of sex offender laws.

Read the rest of this excellent piece here at INVESTIGATEWEST.

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