EDITORIAL: Suffolk's latest unrealistic idea for homeless sex offenders

Suffolk's latest idea for housing homeless sex offenders has hit the rocks. The county has a legal obligation to shelter the homeless, including a dozen or so registered sex offenders. But in its as-yet fruitless quest to address this issue, the legislature has refused to fund vouchers for homeless sex offenders to find their own accommodations (an approach working in Nassau) and ordered officials to close trailers that have been used for years in Suffolk without incident. Now, it has proposed a network of mini shelters, scattered around the county.

But the lone bidder to operate these shelters is unwilling to get involved in a public site-approval process. That's understandable - any attempt to win public approval for specific locations is likely to end in failure. While it's possible shelters could be sited in nonresidential areas without the public's knowledge, such unscrupulous stealth would be political suicide. And even assuming the public could be kept in the dark, when the homeless moved in, rancor would surely follow. Litigation has dogged the county's use of trailers to temporarily house sex offenders.

Such public discontent has been stoked by elected officials, and it's made this tough problem even more intractable. The legislature needs to do better. So far, it has found workable approaches unacceptable, and the approach it finds acceptable is looking unworkable. hN