Ron Book’s Hypocrisy in ‘Helping Homeless’ Sex Offenders
Weekly Update 2017-08-22
Dear Members and Advocates,
This week you get another update about Ron and Lauren Book. Well, not exactly… it’s an update on the homeless situation we’ve been reporting on, but we need to provide some history first.
A dozen years ago, lobbyist Ron Book, fought for a law that established a sex offender “exclusion zone”. Essentially a 2,500 foot buffer around schools, where people who were ever convicted of a sex offense could not live. Since Miami-Dade County is so densely populated, registrants were having a hard time finding housing, so 100 of them began to congregate under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
After a few years and lots of bad press, the same Ron Book (who is also the same Ron Book who is in charge of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust) evicted them from under the Julia Tuttle Bridge (Bookville #1) , so they moved to another small pocket of availability in Shorecrest (Bookville II). A few years and a lot of bad press later, they put in a “pocket park” to close off that area and the “sex offender shuffle” came to a small trailer park on 27th Avenue in Miami.
After a few years and more bad press, Ron Book determined the trailer park was too close to a “school” (that was not really a school and across the Miami River, but never mind that) and pressured the county to evict over 100 people who were again shuffled, this time to the railroad tracks near Hialeah (Bookville III).
Now, after a few years and more bad press, we are at this point. The residency restriction in Miami-Dade (ironically named the “Lauren Book Child Safety Ordinance”) combined with an increasing number of individuals being added to the registry, ZERO attrition (because registrants in Florida remain on for life), a decreasing supply of housing and ever increasing restrictions, we have 270 people living homeless in Bookville III. Today’s Miami Herald features the story.
Almost laughably, who are the “good Samaritans” working so hard to “help” these people? Ron and Lauren Book, of course! Pictures of them are prominent in the papers and on the news.
After over a decade, a federal lawsuit, public health and safety complaints and worst of all hundreds of human beings being forced to live under harsh and inhumane conditions, does Miami-Dade County really believe that the Books are the right people to resolve this situation? Or, will they again displace these individuals to the fringes of the county, away from family and employment and with no access to public transportation, only for Bookville IV to pop up in a new area?
Not if we (or the ACLU – who thankfully represent us) can help it.
Sincerely,
The Florida Action Committee
SOME HEADLINES FROM THIS WEEK
Sex Offenders Set Up Camp in NW Miami-Dade
A tent community in northwest Miami-Dade is a place people call home but it’s not a place most of them would want to live. The community is the last resort for people like Bret, who would only give his first name. “Absolutely not, I wouldn’t even come into this part…
Tent camp of homeless sex offenders near Hialeah ‘has got to close,’ county says
Seven years after Miami-Dade County shut down a camp housing about 100 homeless sex offenders under a bridge in Miami, it’s now trying to deal with an encampment on the outskirts of Hialeah that has almost three times as many residents registered to live there. Police…
Registered sex offender shot to death when answering knock at door
The Sabine Parish Coroner has released the identity of a man shot to death when answering the door. The body of 72-year-old Jerry Wayne Scott was found in the doorway at his home in the 1300 block of Matthews Lodge Road in Many on Saturday morning, according to Sabine…
Another Florida Teacher Commits a Sex Crime
While laws keep anyone with a sexual offense anyplace in their history from living within 2500 feet of schools, Florida school teachers are committing sex crimes. Yesterday, a Naples, FL teacher was arrested for two counts of sexual assault of a teen, sending…