Housing for sex offenders a concern in Hampden

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HAMPDEN – Pauline Ouellette never would have moved to Meadow Road three years ago with her husband and three children if she had known a sex offender lived down the road.

Now that three sex offenders are living at the Bangor Rescue Mission less than a mile away, she’s even more concerned.

“I can just imagine what their conversation is at night or sitting around the table,” she said recently, sitting in her kitchen as children fresh from a swim roamed around the house.

Along with other neighbors, Ouellette was notified by police about a month ago when the third sex offender moved into the mission. She showed the man’s picture to her children and to the two children for whom she baby-sits and did her best to explain why he was dangerous.

Dana Archambeau, Ouellette’s neighbor and a mother of two, also was notified when the third sex offender moved into the mission.

“We all think it won’t happen to us, but it’s more likely to happen to us with three of them living down the road,” she said.

While she opposes the three men being allowed to live together, Archambeau said she is somewhat comforted that she and police are aware of their presence. As for what to do about the situation, there’s no easy answer, she said.

Down the road, Ouellette has a simple wish.

“I’d like for those three to go away,” she said.

Proposed legislation

Nothing, however, prevents the three men from living together. State Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden, wants to change that and has filed legislation based on a Pennsylvania law that would prevent sex offenders from cohabiting.

“I think the risk of recidivism is very high. It’s just not a healthy situation,” said Plowman, who lives about two miles from the mission.

If passed, the legislation would prevent sex offenders from sharing a single residence or living in the same multiunit building, with the exception of a group home, Plowman said.

Common sense tells her the living situation encourages the men to discuss their past crimes, making them more likely to re-offend, Plowman said. One of the men admits to having more than 40 victims, she said.

Plowman prohibited her teenage daughter from jogging on the road because of the sex offenders’ presence, she said. Now up for re-election, Plowman presented her concerns last week to the Hampden Town Council, prompting a new policy that provides councilors with an update when a sex offender moves into or out of town.

She also alleged that the mission recruits sex offenders from prison.

“They’re coming here to have a place when they get out of jail,” Plowman told the council.

The mission’s leadership says that’s just not true, that the men are directed to the mission by churches, hospitals and word of mouth. The organization provides support and accountability, not a haven for sex offenders to plot their next crime, they contend.

“That’s like characterizing [Alcoholics Anonymous] as a bunch of drunks sitting around trying to find out where they’re going to get their next drink,” the Rev. Charles G. Farley, the mission’s newly appointed board president, said recently.

Experts say no clinical research has been done to examine whether cohabiting sex offenders are more likely to recidivate. Charlie O’Roak, who covers six counties as an administrator for the state Department of Corrections, said it depends on the offender and the counseling arrangement.

Sex offenders on probation rarely are allowed to share a room or house, but are known to live in the same apartment building with their probation officer’s approval, he said.

It’s hard enough just finding a place to put them – as far away as possible from children and where a landlord is willing to rent to them, O’Roak said. “I don’t think there’s a desire for sex offenders to live with sex offenders,” he said. “They live in the same apartment building because it’s the only one available.”

In Bangor, sex offenders frequently live in the same building, Bangor police Detective Jeff Small, who maintains and updates the city’s sex offender registry, said last week. “It’s not unusual at all,” he said, adding that several buildings are known to police for housing multiple sex offenders.

As for where sex offenders should live, Small asks: “Do you want them spread out or do you want them all in one place?”

The mission

The Bangor Rescue Mission was founded in 1965 to provide homeless men with temporary shelter and religious direction, according to its bylaws.

Believing that farm work would restore their physical strength while a relationship with Jesus would nurture their spiritual side, the late Delmont Spencer offered the deed to his working dairy farm for the mission’s use in 1966.

The not-for-profit mission originally was located on Exchange Street in Bangor and now includes a thrift store on Third Street in Bangor in addition to the Hampden location at 396 Meadow Road.

Operated today as a pig farm, the Hampden mission consists of 149 acres on both sides of Meadow Road. Along with the barn and a handful of outbuildings, its two-story lodging can house up to 13 men. Five men live there now, supervised by the Rev. John Bennett, who lives in an apartment above them.

The mission was intended to serve homeless and alcoholic men, not house sex offenders, according to Hazel Ryder of Hampden, Delmont Spencer’s daughter.

“It’s lost the whole purpose,” said Ryder, who is no longer involved in the mission’s operation. “Dad wanted to help alcoholics.”

One man has lived at the mission since 1999, hardly a temporary arrangement, she pointed out.

Only the Bangor location was intended to be a temporary shelter, according to executive director Bennett, who argues that the relatively isolated mission provides a far safer atmosphere for sex offenders than an unsupervised apartment building.

“It’s an ideal place for them,” he said last week, sitting in the back of the mission’s Bangor thrift shop. “They’re supervised, not like the ones that are running loose in the city of Bangor.”

Bennett estimated that he spends 12 to 14 hours a day with the mission’s residents, providing rides and monitoring their comings and goings. The men are required to be in by 10 p.m., unless they’re working, and participate in religious services, he said.

Bennett works with the men’s probation officers to ensure they follow the conditions of their release, he said. All three of the sex offenders have jobs and none has violated his probation, he said.

“I have had no problems with those three men at all,” Bennett said. “I’ve had more problems with alcoholics and drug addicts.”

Mission residents pay board as they can afford it, but the organization receives no government funding, board president Farley said. The mission does receive funding from individuals and churches.

“Someone’s who’s not serious about his recovery will not continue with the mission’s regimented lifestyle,” he said.

Local control

The town of Hampden cannot prohibit sex offenders from living at the mission, which essentially is treated as a single-family home and therefore not required to submit a site plan, according to Town Manager Susan Lessard.

“How they live is governed by their organization, not by us,” she said.

The town conceivably could condemn the mission or pull its tax-exempt status, but that would require an egregious public health hazard or a violation of the rules under which it was established as a not-for-profit organization, Lessard said. Neither of those situations has arisen, she said.

Concerns about the condition of the property have been raised, but the town does not have a property maintenance ordinance after an effort to enact one failed several years ago, Lessard said.

As long as the men abide by the conditions of their release, there’s nothing the town can do aside from following its policy to notify neighbors when a new sex offender moves in, she said.

“There’s a fine line between monitoring and harassment,” Lessard said.

Where to go

Should Plowman’s proposed legislation pass, transitional housing must be provided to accommodate sex offenders who are prohibited from living in the same building, Department of Corrections administrator O’Roak stressed.

“It would be very miserable if we had that restriction and no answer to the problem it’s going to create,” he said.

Over the next year, 101 convicted sex offenders are scheduled to be released from Maine prisons, according to the state DOC.

“They’re going to be in somebody’s backyard,” O’Roak said.

Maine’s sex offender registry can be viewed on the Web at http://sor.informe.org/sor.