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Bills to limit sex offenders at shelters advance in RI General Assembly

Providence Journal - 6/30/2017

June 30--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Two sets of bills aimed at dispersing sex offenders now living at the homeless shelter at Harrington Hall in Cranston moved toward passage in the General Assembly Thursday.

Without debate, the House unanimously passed a bill that would make sex offenders identify themselves to shelter workers each night and shelter workers, in turn, report their presence to police to avoid a fine. The Senate on Wednesday passed a version giving shelters a longer reporting time.

A more controversial bill passed by the Senate Thursday would allow only 10 percent of the beds in shelters with a capacity exceeding 50 to be filled with registered sex offenders on a given night.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Hanna Gallo, D-Cranston, said 25 registered sex offenders often stay at Harrington Hall, which has more than 100 beds. If the bill passes, more than half of them would have to stay elsewhere.

"By taking people out of Harrington Hall and told they were at their limit ... these people would be turned away and be walking the streets of Cranston homeless," said Sen. Donna Nesselbush, D-Pawtucket, in opposition to the bill. "When they are homeless, studies show this increases the incidence of recidivism."

Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, said he supported the bill to break the cycle of "NIMBY," or not-in-my-backyard resistance to shelters in the suburbs that concentrates the entire homeless population in Cranston and Providence.

Gallo acknowledged that moving offenders out of Harrington Hall would not solve the problem, but hoped it would start toward a solution, along with $1 million in the state budget for managing the homeless population.

The vote was 30-5 in favor.

Yet another set of bills reducing the places where sex offenders can live passed out of House and Senate committees Thursday.

The stricter Senate version of the bill, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey, D-Warwick, would prevent Level 3 sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of the nearest property line of any school (instead of the building itself) and notify schools whenever a sex offender moves within 1,000 feet of a bus stop.

-- panderson@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7384

On Twitter: @PatrickAnderso_

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