State reassesses evacuation shelters for sex offenders

• By MARSHA SHULER
• Advocate Capitol news bureau
• Published: Dec 27, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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September’s Hurricane Gustav blew away Quonset hut-type buildings near Zachary that state officials planned to use as hurricane evacuation shelters for sex offenders.

And now the state agency responsible for locating shelter sites is reassessing the situation, a spokesman said.

The buildings were located on State Police training property on Irene Road, but not anymore.

“That’s good enough reason to locate that shelter in another area, probably in north Louisiana,” said state Rep. Tom McVea, R-St. Francisville. “They need to come up with something other than there.

“I’m waiting for Plan B,” McVea said.

The state Department of Social Services, called DSS, is working with the state Department of Corrections on an alternative location, DSS spokesman Trey Williams said.

The agency is trying to identify a solution “where these individuals can be securely housed in a safe environment and are looking at all options,” Williams said.

Williams said DSS hopes to have “a more concrete solution” ready for discussion by the end of January.

Earlier, DSS Undersecretary Ruth Johnson said there are no plans to rebuild on the State Police site.

The East Baton Rouge Parish location of the sex offender shelter has been a sore spot since it was selected.

Community leaders were told it would be a shelter for a “unique population,” which they said they thought meant for people with disabilities or handicaps. They later discovered that the plans called for up to 300 sex offenders to be housed in their area.

State law gives the state government the option of housing all offenders in one location or segregating the sex offenders within general population shelters such as those run by the Red Cross and churches.

State officials went for the central location instead of isolating the registered sex offenders in general shelter populations.