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Legislature: No more vouchers for homeless sex offenders

By Vera Chinese

Suffolk County will no longer be able to provide daily stipends to homeless sex offenders for temporary lodging.
The county Legislature Tuesday night voted 13-5 to override Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy’s veto of a bill that bans the county from using a voucher system to house homeless sex offenders. The bill also directed the Suffolk County Department of Social Services to find suitable locations for private shelters elsewhere across the county.
The Legislature originally passed the bill  in a 14-4 vote May 11. Mr. Levy vetoed that bill May 26.
Under the voucher system, homeless sex offenders are given $90 a day to pay for a meal and lodging in motels and boarding houses.
Mr. Levy has argued that voucher systems are used successfully to house sex offenders in neighboring Nassau County and throughout the state.
The county’s homeless sex offender populations are currently housed in two construction trailers on county-owned property at the Suffolk County jail in Riverside and in Westhampton.
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Vera Chinese has been the editor of northforker.com and northforker magazines since May 2014. Prior to that she spent two and a half years as a staff reporter for the New York Daily News. She joined the Riverhead News-Review as a staff writer in January 2010 and was named Associate Web Editor nine months later. She previously worked for the Southampton Press Western Edition and was named the third place 2008 Rookie Reporter of the Year by the New York Press Association. She graduated from Wagner College in 2006 where she received a bachelor's degree in English. She earned a master's degree in English education from New York University in 2007. She is a 2002 graduate of Eastport High School and has lived on the East End for more than 20 years.

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