Sex-offender status poses a housing challenge for ill Army veteran

Army veteran Paul King struggles to find a place to call home.

Shackled with poor health and a sexual-abuse conviction, King has seen his life deteriorate.

Nearly blind and with failing kidneys, the 45-year-old King, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, has been in and out of hospitals over the past eight months.

He lives in Peaceful Pines residential-care facility in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. The small facility can house 20 residents.

“I feel like I have been left here to die,” he said during a visit with his sister, Carol Christopher of Cape Girardeau.

Carol Christopher reads disability documents to her brother, Paul King, on Thursday at Peaceful Pines Residential Care Facility in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.Glenn Landberg

The federal Veterans Affairs is paying for his care, but such care is temporary.

The VA will pay for six months of care over a three-year period, said Peaceful Pines staff member Elaina Owen said as she prepared to dispense medicine.

The facility houses Medicaid patients and veterans, she said.

Christopher said she initially thought her brother would be able to live there for only 90 days.

“They told me I could stay 90 days,” King recalled.

“If the VA can’t find a place for me, I don’t know what they will do with me,” he said.

King no longer has a bank account. He recently was informed he qualifies for $810 a month in disability benefits.

King said he would like to return to Cape Girardeau. But Christopher said he needs nursing-home care. She said he is too sick for her to take care of him.

“He needs 24-hour care, really,” she said.

Christopher lives in a small rental home. For a short time, she let her brother stay in the house, but Christopher said her landlord told her he could not stay there because he was a sex offender.

Christopher said her brother suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes for some time but didn’t seek medical help.

King lived in downtown Cape Girardeau, a short distance from the restaurant where he worked. But by August, his health had declined drastically.

“I couldn’t walk to work without being exhausted,” he recalled. “I had shortness of breath.”

He was treated at Southeast Hospital in August, the first of several hospitalizations.

He soon discovered he was going blind, and his kidneys were failing. He recently was hospitalized briefly in Poplar Bluff because of fluid on his heart.

While living in Cape Girardeau earlier this year, he was hospitalized in the intensive-care unit at Southeast Hospital.

When it was time to discharge him last month, Christopher said she was told by a social worker he would be taken to Peaceful Pines, the only available option at the time.

Christopher initially described the place as a shelter for homeless veterans.

King has lived at Peaceful Pines for about a month now. He undergoes dialysis three times a week at a Poplar Bluff hospital.

“I have all kinds of medicine,” he said.

Christopher said her brother has little energy and sleeps a lot.

“He is just worn out,” she said.

Christopher would like to get her brother admitted to a Cape Girardeau nursing home. But she said many nursing homes won’t admit sex offenders. She said the fact he was basically destitute didn’t help, either.

Not welcome

Although he is a veteran, King isn’t eligible to apply for residency to any Missouri Veterans Home, including the one in Cape Girardeau.

He also is barred from receiving federal housing assistance for homeless vets because of his sex-offender status.

Daniel Bell, a spokesman for the Missouri Veterans Commission which oversees the veterans homes, said its policy bans registered sex offenders from living in its homes for safety reasons.

Bell said the ban applies only to registered sex offenders. Applications from veterans convicted of other crimes are considered on a case-by-case basis, he said.

Missouri veterans homes also come under federal regulations, which require such facilities to transfer or discharge patients who pose a safety concern for other residents of the homes, visitors or staff, Bell said.

In addition, veterans who have been convicted of felony offenses cannot be buried in veterans cemeteries, he said, adding it is a federal prohibition.

“We have had situations where we have had to deny veterans burial in veterans’ cemeteries,” Bell said.

Convicted

King was charged with aggravated sexual abuse of his 16-year-old daughter when he was living in Alton, Illinois.

“She said I attacked her,” he said.

Although he pleaded guilty and served time, King said he was innocent.

King disputes his daughter’s version of events, He said he agreed to a plea deal in July 2003 on the advice of his attorney.

King said he was concerned he would never again see his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, if he didn’t take the deal. His mother since has died.

He served four years in an Illinois prison. When he was released in 2007, he moved to Cape Girardeau.

King said he thought the incident would be behind him once he finished serving his sentence.

“I didn’t know it would affect the rest of my life like that,” he said.

But Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Limbaugh said sex-offender registries serve a good purpose.

They not only benefit law enforcement but help keep people informed about people who may pose a risk to others, he said.

Some sex offenders are prone to be repeat offenders, he said. Public registries such as the one on the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department website provide a mechanism for residents to be aware of sex offenders living in their neighborhoods.

“Neighbors ask each other to watch each other’s house or watch each other’s children,” Limbaugh said.

Residents would want to know whether their neighbors could be dangerous, he added.

Limbaugh said he thinks the public registries also may deter some people from committing sex offenses in the first place.

Case for reform

Sandy Rozek, a board member and spokeswoman for the Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) organization, sees no benefit to public registries. She said King’s situation is “so very sad.”

Rozek, who lives in Houston, said some sex offenders across the nation end up homeless because they have no housing options.

“This does not surprise me,” she said of King’s situation.

Rozek said her organization opposes public registries of sex offenders.

“The research is very clear,” she said. “There is no public-safety benefit to public registries.”

Supporters argue the registries, which are in effect in all 50 states, inform the public about where such offenders are living and benefit public safety.

But Rozek said studies show those convicted of many other offenses, such as stealing and drug dealing, have a greater tendency to be repeat offenders than sex offenders. But the public “refuses to believe it could be a one-time thing,” she said of sex offenses.

Rozek said those charged with sex offenses typically are found guilty regardless of the circumstances.

RSOL says people should receive “appropriate punishment” for sex-offense convictions.

“We are not trying to do away with appropriate prison terms,” Rozek said.

But once they have served their sentences, they should be allowed to resume their lives without the restrictions they now face, she said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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