Several Yakima apartment complexes filled with sex offenders
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YAKIMA, Wash. -- KIMA is always looking for ways to keep you safe and informed about sex offenders. We found several apartment complexes or group homes with up to seven sex offenders living inside. They're not there illegally, but you might want to know if your moving nearby.
You're one click away from safer living. The Yakima county sex offender registry lists information, a picture of each sex offender and most importantly an address.
Action News learned several level two and three offenders share the same address.
Within two miles of downtown Yakima, three apartment complexes or group homes have at least four sex offenders living there.
The cascade apartments on East A street and the Red Apple Motel are two of them. But the building with the most sex offenders is a group home on Terrace Street. It has seven registered offenders.
When Action News saw rooms for rent, we called the owner. KIMA learned the building was just bought by a Providence Recovery Center. The new owner says sex offenders will get a 20-day notice and told to leave. It's an effort to turn it into a faith-based recovery house.
The same goes for s house on 11th Street. All of the tenants are gone and the remodel has begun.
It's a relief to neighbor Al Gamet.
"it disturbed my family continually," Al said of the old tenants. "Used to call the owner almost every week for years."
Al hopes for a positive change. But after years of trouble, he can't help but be skeptical.
"It's kind of a wait and see," said Al.
There is an issue with that empty complex where the sex offenders were evicted. They're still listed at that address on the county's sex offender website. We found out it can take weeks to go through the paperwork and update the addresses.
Sex offenders have three days to tell the sheriff's office about a new address or they could be arrested.
You're one click away from safer living. The Yakima county sex offender registry lists information, a picture of each sex offender and most importantly an address.
Action News learned several level two and three offenders share the same address.
Within two miles of downtown Yakima, three apartment complexes or group homes have at least four sex offenders living there.
The cascade apartments on East A street and the Red Apple Motel are two of them. But the building with the most sex offenders is a group home on Terrace Street. It has seven registered offenders.
When Action News saw rooms for rent, we called the owner. KIMA learned the building was just bought by a Providence Recovery Center. The new owner says sex offenders will get a 20-day notice and told to leave. It's an effort to turn it into a faith-based recovery house.
The same goes for s house on 11th Street. All of the tenants are gone and the remodel has begun.
It's a relief to neighbor Al Gamet.
"it disturbed my family continually," Al said of the old tenants. "Used to call the owner almost every week for years."
Al hopes for a positive change. But after years of trouble, he can't help but be skeptical.
"It's kind of a wait and see," said Al.
There is an issue with that empty complex where the sex offenders were evicted. They're still listed at that address on the county's sex offender website. We found out it can take weeks to go through the paperwork and update the addresses.
Sex offenders have three days to tell the sheriff's office about a new address or they could be arrested.
SHAME ON YOU!  And the Providence Recovery Center claims it is faith-based? ALL the major world religions embrace forgiveness as a core principle.  Why is it that ignorant people think that all registered sex offenders are pedophiles and predators and that they are waiting to nab your children?? They are citizens whose crimes may have been as much as 50 years ago, who have paid their debt through incarceration and/or rehabilitation, who unlike released murderers & kidnappers are on a registry for the rest of their lives. Many had sex with their underage partner and are now married to that partner with children of his or her own. 93% of sex crimes against children are NOT committed by strangers, but by acquaintances and family members. The recidivism rate for former sex offenders is less than 5.5%. Study the facts before you go on your witch hunt  and force people into homelessness. DO you think that forcing people to the margins of society really  makes us all any safer?  Leave these people alone why don't you? How about a story encouraging reintegration into society, commenting on the benefits to society and law enforcement of having registered offenders HOUSED and not homeless or transient? Instead, you've relayed your own misconceptions on this issue and created an unnecessary scare tactic.
This is extremely irresponsible. I am especially repulsed by, "You're one click away from safer living." Not if you are one of the registrants living in one of those apartments that KIMA TV.com is so  proud of announcing. There is not one iota of increased community safety to be had by publishing this, but much harm can be done. If some vigilante whose shoe size exceeds his IQ attacks one or more registrants living in those apartments, I hope KIMA is ready to step up and take some of the responsibility,
And to the Providence Recovery Center, I don't know what type of "faith-based" recovery home you are planning, but the faith is clearly not Christianity. To evict people who are doing everything they can to obey the law and keep themselves together within the narrow, narrow range of options they have, people who are as much and more in need of faith-based recovery as anyone could be, is the exact opposite of what my Bible indicates a Christian would do.
 @Shelly Stow I completely agree with you, it is repulsive, yellow journalism.  One Click Away From Safer Living, my rear end.  Apparently the writer advocates homelessless for former offenders as well as intolerance by an allegedly "faith based" recovery center.  Very short sighted behavior on the part of all concerned, as homeless former offenders are harder to track, less stable, and without the supports which exacerbate recidivism.  Completely fails to acknowledge that a former offender who integrates into society, who can get hired, who can get housed, can get treatment and check in with parole/probation as necessary, is actually an asset to the community.   That's probably more than their little brains can bear to imagine. It's easier to run around screaming "eeeeeeeeeKKK!!"  Irresponsible, biased, ignorant and unprofessional "writing", not worthy of a member of the Fourth Estate.
Thankfully more people are wondering whether we should continue with the registry at all. Espciailly since it costs the state hundreds of millions while other programs accross the state are closing at alarming rates - yet we continue to pump money into protecting children from a monster that doesn't exist. Â Children are less safe in their own homes. Â How do you protect them from their uncles, cousins, grandfathers and school teachers? Â The registry is completely useless at protection. Â It just provides jobs to people bent on oppression to make a quick buck. Â This will be another shameful period in our history just like the witch hunts, slavery, the Holocaust, Jim Crow laws, womens rights, gay marriage and the inquisition. Â
 @First Last Except, the reason for the registry has never been to keep people safer. That may have been the line used to sell it, but that is not the real reason.Â
The real reason is to work to keep these people in prison for life. The State has to release them, but if they report to the sheriff one day early or one day late, that's another 10 years. Now these newly homeless people have to report weekly.
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 @First Last - Beautiful.
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Really? This is news? Shouldn't parents be worried about where the sex offenders are who AREN'T registering?
So now these people get pushed out, have no where to live, and end up on the streets where they are harder to track?
How about some real investigation. I am more worried about the convicted drunk drivers, the convicted meth heads, the convicted thieves, etc.
Articles like this are nothing more than fear mongering. How does it make us any safer?