Suffolk's sex-offender saga goes on

Even for brains that can't process numbers well - like mine, for example - the difference between 20 and 400,000 is fairly easy to grasp.

But that concept continues to elude the Suffolk County Legislature and County Executive Steve Levy, as they wrestle endlessly and, so far, unproductively over what to do about homeless sex offenders.

The math is oh, so simple.

On any given day, the county's Department of Social Services provides emergency housing to 20 or so homeless sex offenders - give or take a few. The department doesn't do this out of the goodness of its heart, or because it is soft on the horrific crime of sexual abuse, but because state law requires counties and cities to provide emergency housing to the homeless - period.

In the average year, the department serves about 400,000 people. Their needs vary widely: food, health care, housing. You name it. Their mix of virtue and vice is pretty much the same as you'd find in any population of homo sapiens, but it's fair to say that their stories are a lot more sympathetic than those of the convicted and released sex offenders.

But judging by the volume of political rhetoric about the 20, you'd think that the 400,000 - and their real and legitimate needs - don't exist.

At the heart of the issue is a deep desire by lawmakers not to have sex offenders living in their districts. So the county's solution so far - putting them up in trailers in Riverhead and Westhampton - is not wildly popular with legislators from the East End.

They do have have one valid point: Most of the sex offenders are originally from western Suffolk, which makes putting them all on the East End seem excessive. But then, one original idea was to move the trailers around to county land all over Suffolk. That, of course, got nowhere fast.

The alternative plan: giving homeless offenders vouchers to pay for their own housing, in motels of their own choosing. This is bad on so many levels.

For one thing, it leaves the offenders unsupervised. For another, it puts them in motels where innocent families live. It's also extremely expensive. And the number of motels willing to accept sex offenders as guests is almost as low as the number of legislators willing to have them in their districts.

The next plan, originally sponsored by Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook), was to ask a trusted agency, one that already operates other housing for the department, to run mini-shelters for sex offenders. They'd be in nonresidential areas, no more than one in any town or legislative district. And they'd provide 24/7 supervision. But the plan had a controversial provision: The sites wouldn't be revealed until after they'd opened. Levy vetoed it; the legislature couldn't override him. Then he vetoed a second plan, with a different agency, but without the secrecy provision.

That's where it stands.

The vouchers are a bad option, even though it's the one Levy prefers. Given the expense alone, it's hard to see how the hyper-frugal county executive thinks this is the best option. Anyway, the legislature will never agree to fund them.

The trailers are on the verge of extinction, thanks to legal challenges. Besides, lawmakers realize the unfairness of putting all the offenders out east.

So the only remaining option for legislators is to override Levy's second veto and adopt the mini-shelter plan. To its credit, the legislature has twice summoned a majority for this concept. Now it must somehow manage to find the 12 votes it needs to override.

Then the county can stop subtracting from the needs of the worthy 400,000 all the time and energy it's taking to find a politically acceptable answer for the nasty 20.