Legislature overrides Levy’s veto of homeless sex offender bill

The county Department of Social Services now has until Oct. 15 to come up with a new way of dealing with homeless sex offenders in its care.
That’s because the county legislature on Thursday overrode County Executive Steve Levy’s veto of the bill establishing that deadline.
The override vote was 12-6.
The county currently houses homeless sex offenders from the entire county in two trailers on the East End, including one in the parking lot of the county jail in Riverside.
The DSS already had been directed by the legislature to come up with a new way of handling homeless sex offenders as a result of an earlier bill, which also was vetoed by Mr. Levy and overrode by the legislature, but that bill didn’t include the Oct. 15 deadline.
The legislature now has directed DSS to end a practice of giving vouchers to homeless sex offenders, and to develop a new program to provide them emergency housing. It allowed no more than one emergency housing shelter in any town or legislative district, and no more than six sex offenders in any one shelter. Those shelters would be supervised.
Mr. Levy had opposed the elimination of the voucher system, in which DSS gives homeless sex offenders in its care a certain amount of money each night and lets them find their own food and shelter. Opponents say that plan leaves them unsupervised and unaccounted for.
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