Just the other day I placed an offer on a home where a sex offender lives next door. It appears this sex offender abused kids which for me is not quite as big as a problem because I don't have kids and I don't plan on having one in the immediate future.
This sex offender, according to his Megan's Law profile he is in his seventies. When I looked up the property and the county assessor's office it isn't listed under this individuals name which leads me to believe he is renting. 70 something-year-old renting sex offender probably won't be living in the house in ten years when I'm ready to sell. I'm not as put out about living next to a sex offender as I would have been 4 months ago when I started looking. If there was a sex offender anywhere on the street I was wary, now I just look at the potential risk. If the sex offender targets a population that I'm not a part of I figure it is better for me to live next door than people with kids.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not excited to live next to a sex offender. I'd probably never invite him over to barbecue or ask him to house sit while I was away. I'd much rather not live next to any sort of criminal but choosing neighbors is next to impossible. I figure Megan's Law at least gives me a heads up. I know this is a person I don't want to befriend and don't want to involve in my life. I can't say that about the neighbors on the other side of the house. They may be good people, they may not be. It will be trial and error to try to find it out.
Antioch, California has been in the news of late because of the high number of sex offenders who live in the area. No one wants to live next door to a sex offender but someone has to. In Antioch there are large expanses of rural areas away from schools and parks. Sex offenders found a community to live in that met the legal requirements, to the chagrin of the neighbors. So where are sex offenders suppose to go if not next door to you are me?
I've thought about this and I think the formation of towns in rural areas, like deserts and in the Midwest where sex offenders could live independently but the town was populated only by sex offenders and parole officers. It would be illegal to have children in the town. Is this ghettoizing a population? You bet it is. Is that fair? To the sex offenders, of course it isn't fair, but I don't know how to protect the rest of society without incarcerating these folks for life.
So, house available next to a sex offender may be a boon for me and other childless home buyers but it is definitely something that the community could do without.
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