A group of sex offenders are camping out on a northeast Miami neighborhood street corner, and local officials aren't happy about it.
Some two dozen homeless sex offenders have been sleeping overnight on a concrete slab on the corner of Northeast 79th Street and 10th Avenue in Shorecrest, according to the Miami Herald.
The group sleeps in tents or on chairs on the piece of concrete that sits between two vacant lots, with no roof on their head. They usually show up at 10 p.m. and leave by 6 a.m.
Miami-Dade has stringent sex offender ordinances that prohibits them from living within 2,500 feet of a school.
State probation officials know of the camp and many of the offenders told the Herald they were directed there by their probation officers after their release from prison.
Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who represents Shorecrest, said the spot was supposed to be temporary and he was disappointed in the lack of progress. He said the city should take the state to court and said he is preparing a resolution to seek city commission to file a lawsuit to prevent the corrections department from directing offenders to the camp.
State prison officials said they're aware of the camp but aren't directing offenders there.
"We are not telling probationers to go live there," Ann Howard, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, told the Herald. "We can’t tell them where they can live."
In March 2010, dozens of sex offenders were cleared out of a similar camp under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. The encampment popped up in 2007 and once housed more than 100 people who said they were unable to live elsewhere because of the tough sex offender ordinances.
