Posted: Monday, August 25, 2008 12:00 am
Gazette-Times editorial for Monday, Aug. 25
We've already indicated our support for Benton County's pioneering efforts to find places to house homeless with chronic mental illness or other debilitating conditions rather than repeatedly arresting them.
Oregon leaders dedicated to the ambitious plan of halting homelessness in 10 years have concluded that it's better - and far less expensive - to provide a modest dwelling for the small number of people who are - for whatever reason - chronically homeless.
In coming days, two new apartments at Fifth and Monroe will be occupied - at taxpayer expense - by such people. They may be homelessness and mentally ill. They may have been released from prison. But instead of being given a ticket out of town and left to wander at will, with no help or hope, they will live across the street from the law enforcement personnel. The facility will have some monitoring.
It's a good idea, worth a try.
Yet we can hear the objections now; Corvallis will get the reputation of handing out free lodging, no questions asked. And what about the working poor, who often are homeless because they cannot afford the high cost of housing? Is this fair to them?
It is perhaps in anticipation of such questions that Sheriff Diana Simpson, who told us of the apartments two months ago, has been slow to publicly detail the specifics of the conditions and qualifications of the people who will occupy those apartments.
But it isn't too early to give the public a heads-up that Benton is trying something new, and we will soon follow up with news story that answer those questions.
What may surprise some residents is that the county already has a six-bed "transition center" for convicted predatory sex offenders, located in the same vicinity. The people who live there are supervised between 8 a.m. and 11:30 p.m., seven days a week. Jail personnel monitor them from 11:30 p.m. to 8 a.m. the following morning, but no one is there onsite.
The result is pretty good, according to straight-talking Sgt. Jenna Morrison with the county's parole and probation department. She said the county has a simple and logical plan: "We never want to have a predatory sex offender go homeless."
Not a bad idea, when you think about it. The sex offender registry was started so that people who fit into that small group of sex offenders who are most likely to reoffend can be monitored. It's better to know where they live.
Actually, because they are so heavily supervised, Morrison said these population has among the lowest repeat rates of any criminal group, contrary to popular belief.
However, common sense often crumbles under the pressure of overheated rhetoric. For instance, last week a group of leaders, including Gov. Chris Gregoire, met in Seattle to ponder whether Washington should join the 23 states where convicted sex offenders would not be allowed within a certain distance of universities, on the legal theory that they, too, are schools.
But that raises the legitimate question of just where sex offenders can live.
Benton County has 60 sex offenders under supervised parole; 13 of them are predatory sex offenders, and three sex offenders live in the vicinity of Oregon State University.
We do not for a minute believe that sex offenders and the chronically homeless are the same people or belong in the same demographic. They are, however, two different groups of people who share similar housing problems: They need housing, and few people want to either provide it or want them as neighbors.
Morrison and other county officials are facing that issue boldly, with a reasonable solution. It's an issue many people ignore or avoid, but we can no longer avoid having a reasoned discussion of the county's reasonable efforts to meet these sensitive housing needs affordably and responsibly.