<br />22 Planning January 2007
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<br />Yes in your backyard
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<br />It's difficult to feel sympathy for people like
<br />Hill, who have hurt children or sexually as-
<br />saulted adults. Highly publicized cases like that
<br />ofJessica Lunsford, a Florida girl who in 2005
<br />was abducted, assaulted, and buried alive by a
<br />convicted sex offender, keep violent sex crimes
<br />in the news.
<br />While sexual abuse has dropped 40 percent
<br />in the last two decades, according to the U.S.
<br />Department of Justice, few jurisdictions are pre-
<br />pared when convicted sex offenders are released
<br />from prison and reenter the community.
<br />Twenty-one states and hundreds of munici-
<br />palities have passed laws restricting where sex
<br />offenders can live. Do they work? Do they make
<br />communities safer? Many places think so and
<br />are passing residency laws at a steady clip, in
<br />many cases competing to craft more restrictive
<br />laws than the next town over.
<br />Still, residency restrictions have their crit-
<br />ics. Making sections of a city uninhabitable to
<br />sex offenders greatly reduces offenders' access
<br />to housing, employment, transportation, and
<br />
<br />services. Those who treat sex offenders say that
<br />situation creates more problems: Without sup-
<br />port, stable housing, jobs, and access to treat-
<br />ment, sex offenders-and all criminals-are
<br />statistically more likely to commit new crimes.
<br />They are also more likely to go underground,
<br />making it impossible to monitor them.
<br />Released sex offenders live in every state. "We
<br />want to believe they are the few, the perverted,
<br />and the far away," says David D'Amora, a
<br />therapist who works with sex offenders in Con-
<br />necticut and chairs the public policy committee
<br />of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual
<br />Abusers, based in Beaverton, Oregon. In fact,
<br />there are more than half a million registered sex
<br />offenders nationwide, with more than 100,000
<br />in California alor;.e.
<br />
<br />How the laws have evolved
<br />Since 1994, sex offenders have been required
<br />to register with local authorities on a regular
<br />basis. The federal law passed that year, the Ja-
<br />cob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and
<br />Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act,
<br />
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<br />is named after an l1-year-old Minnesota boy
<br />who was abducted and never found. While U.S.
<br />law compels sex offenders to register, state laws
<br />dictate how often and for how long; 11 states
<br />require lifetime registration.
<br />A 1996 amendment to the Jacob Wetterling
<br />Act, Megan's Law, added a community notifi-
<br />cation requirement, which also varies by state.
<br />Most states publish an online database of sex
<br />offenders' names, addresses, and convictions,
<br />whereas others leave it to local authorities to
<br />circulate information to nearby neighbors or
<br />schools. The law is named after the high-profile
<br />case of Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old New
<br />Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a known
<br />sex offender who had moved in across the street
<br />from her family.
<br />With Megan's Law, "we created an opportu-
<br />nityfor the public to know where sex offenders
<br />live," says Suzanne Brown-McBride, a victims
<br />advocate and executive director of CALCASA,
<br />the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
<br />She notes that no otherdassofcriminals, includ-
<br />ing murderers, is similarly monitored.
<br />
<br />Group Homes Still Struggle to Fit In
<br />
<br />The family that lives at 61 st Street and San Pablo
<br />Avenue in Oakland, California, is unusually
<br />large. Its household members occupy some 21
<br />beds in a two-story Victorian house across from
<br />a school. The family is disciplined-breakfast
<br />is at 7:30 sharp, lunch at 1 :30-and it's also
<br />friendly, with someone almost always on the
<br />front stoop to greet passersby.
<br />But under many city codes this household
<br />would not qualify as a family. After all, its
<br />members are not related by blood, but rather
<br />by a common goal: to overcome the obstacles
<br />created by mental illness and substance abuse
<br />so that they can function in society.
<br />The house is a group home called Morning
<br />Star Villa. Group homes, ranging from a few beds
<br />to a couple dozen, house those who, because of
<br />an addiction or a disability, can't otherwise live
<br />independently. Over the past few decades, more
<br />and more disabled people have left institutions
<br />and moved into small group living situations.
<br />Like most group homes, Morning Star Villa
<br />does share aspects ofa family, including mutual
<br />support, many long-term residents, and life
<br />skills education-"stuff to get them familiar
<br />with society," says administrator Anthony
<br />Piano. But group homes are a different animal:
<br />Drug dealers target them. Most residents need
<br />caseworkers. And the homes have unique real
<br />estate needs such as latge buildings and inex-
<br />pensive property.
<br />That's the dilemma for planners used to cut-
<br />
<br />and-dried land-use categories. The 1988 federal
<br />Fair HousingAmenclments Act classified people
<br />with disabilities as a protected class for which
<br />cities must make "a reasonable accommodation"
<br />in their zoning codes. A 1995 U.S. Supreme
<br />Court case upheld the FHAA's application to
<br />zoning. But nearly two decades after the FHM
<br />became law, local governments are still struggling
<br />with how to regulate group homes.
<br />"A lot more cities are allowing community
<br />residences as residential uses, but many are
<br />getting it wrong," says Daniel Lauber, AICP, a
<br />planner and attorney who specializes in com-
<br />munity residence regulation. "The FHAA left
<br />people very confused."
<br />
<br />Community integration
<br />Group homes are part of a larger category known
<br />as community residences, which also includes
<br />halfway houses, a more temporary type of group
<br />living situation. Community residences have
<br />existed in the U.S. since the 1880s, says Lauber,
<br />but until the 1960s most policies leaned toward
<br />institutionalization for people with disabilities.
<br />In the 1960s and 70s that changed, as parenrs
<br />of people wirh disabilities filed lawsuits seeking
<br />alternatives to institutions.
<br />"The key to all of this is community iutegra-
<br />tion," Lauber says, helping to "make people
<br />all they can be." However, local governments
<br />lagged in regulating the growing number of
<br />community residences.
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<br />"Group homes wete an anathema," says
<br />Martin Jaffe, an associate professor of urban
<br />planning and policy at the University of Illi-
<br />nois-Chicago. Generally, he says, group homes
<br />were regulated with conditional use permits. "It
<br />practically guaranteed everyone would show up
<br />to oppose them."
<br />Case law generally upheld those trying to
<br />keep group living situations out of single-fanlily
<br />residential areas. In 1974, in Belle Terre v. Boraas,
<br />the Supreme Court upheld a city's ordinance
<br />defining a family. The opinion stated that equal
<br />protection did not apply and that the courtS had
<br />no reason to interfere with a local jurisdiction's
<br />police power. In 1985's City of Cleburne v.
<br />Cleburne Living Center decision, the Supreme
<br />Court acknowledged that the disabled received
<br />no special review.
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