yay, America.

Bridge Still Home For Miami Sex Offenders
by Greg Allen
July 21, 2009
State judges in Miami are being asked to mediate a dispute that involves the city, the state and a growing colony of sex offenders.
The colony is an encampment of tents and shacks under a Miami bridge that began when corrections officers began ordering offenders there a few years ago. The shantytown was created in response to local laws that restrict where sex offenders can live.
Now, local and state officials are trading charges about who's to blame for creating the situation and who should fix it.
Village Of Tents
It started more than two years ago -- a few tents pitched under a bridge on Miami's Julia Tuttle Causeway. Today, it's a well-established shantytown. More than 80 people make their home under the bridge.
There are half a dozen wooden shacks, some with cooking and toilet facilities. It's a village of tents, campers and cars -- also a dock with a few small rowboats. Shared generators provide power for a CD player -- also to recharge cell phones and electronic monitoring units required for sex offenders on supervised release.
Homer Barclay came to live here a year and a half ago. Barclay was convicted of attempted sexual battery in 1992. Last year, after a parole violation, he says probation officers gave him just one option.
"They told me that I had to live up under the Julia Tuttle Causeway," says Barclay. "I said, 'How come I have to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway?' They said, 'If you want to go home, this is where you got to go.' "
Barclay has a driver's license issued to him at the time of his release. His address is listed as Julia Tuttle Causeway.
Like many of the sex offenders on supervised release, Barclay is required to be here between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. During the day, many of the felons leave for jobs or to visit their families.
On this day, Barclay was fishing.
"I'm not working because it's difficult to find a job. I went everywhere looking for a job. Woo, it's rough," Barclay says. "Right now, I'm hungry, you know what I'm saying? I need a bath. I'm fishing, as you see, to try to survive. We just want to do what they want us to do. We just want our life back. That's all we want." ....