Sex offender housing plan not set in stone

While the four-year practice of housing homeless sex offenders in trailers on county-owned facilities in Southampton Town could end this fall, two county lawmakers said Monday that they weren't guaranteeing it.

Edward P. Romaine (R-Center Moriches) and Jay Schneiderman (I-Montauk) stood in the rain Monday alongside one of the two trailers, along with local residents and other lawmakers, to protest the continuing presence of the offenders.

"There are 200 units of housing across that tree line. . . . Those people can't sleep at night," Schneiderman said, referring to the residents.

The legislature has agreed to sign a contract with a Brentwood firm, Haven House/Bridges Inc., to open several small facilities to house the homeless sex offenders, with no more than six at any single location. But the contract is still being negotiated, the price of the new housing is not known, and Haven House has said it will not announce the locations until all the sites are identified.

By law, county officials must provide housing for the homeless. And, by law, they cannot keep homeless sex offenders in jail once they have served their sentences. County policy says the offenders cannot be in residential areas, and have to be at least a quarter-mile from any school or park or playground.

Suffolk Social Services Commissioner Gregory J. Blass acknowledged the uncertainty of the situation Monday. "The anxiety is understandable. It's one of those things where it seems whenever you go one step forward, you go one step backward . . . but we hope, if all goes right, by the end of summer we will have new housing."

The county started using a trailer on the grounds of the Suffolk County jail in Riverside, just across the Peconic River from the downtown Riverhead business district, in 2007, and at the time said it would be moved from town to town so no single community would be affected for too long.

But while the population changed -- only 20 to 25 of Suffolk's registered sex offenders are classified as homeless on any single day -- the trailer never moved. When it got too crowded, a second trailer was placed in Westhampton. Efforts to shut the trailers by giving homeless sex offenders vouchers for motels or finding alternative sites have failed or ended up in unresolved court or political battles.

Blass, a former Suffolk legislator, said resolution has been at a "stalemate," but added, "Now we have a direction. We're all on the same page."