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Homeless Sex Offender Has Roof For Now

By CHRIS COYNER

After living outdoors for weeks, Zackery Hicks will be staying at a motel with another sex offender.

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune
and JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 19, 2008

Updated: 09/19/2008 06:33 pm

TAMPA - Zackery Hicks has a new home. At least for now.

Hicks got out of prison last month after serving a 14-year term for robbery and for a while couldn't afford a permanent residence. He had limited options on where to stay because he is a convicted sex offender, so he spent time camping in a field under a Selmon Crosstown Expressway bridge near shipyards.

Things changed this morning. Now, he shares a room at the Ranch House Motel in Tampa with another convicted sex offender.

Hicks, 42, said he also now has a temporary job lined up.

"I think I have a good chance of staying off the streets," he said. "The people at the church I go to are giving me their support, and they're there for me whenever I need to talk."

"Everybody's different," state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. "If he can get a permanent job, obviously his chances will increase. If he has a roommate, that will help as well. But unfortunately, we do see these offenders sometimes find a place to live, and it's temporary, and they're back out, homeless again."

The homeless situation Hicks faced largely is because he is a sex offender, and this situation is not all that uncommon in Florida, where the oppressive stigma of being a sex offender is nearly insurmountable. Some cities across the nation have passed laws that are so restrictive, sex offenders cannot reside there.

Hicks' conviction for lewd and lascivious molestation of a child younger than 16, when he was 19, is keeping him from living with his stepmother because he can't live within 1,000 feet of where children gather and she lives near a bus stop and day care center. So, he was out in the woods, literally.

Without a steady income, Hicks can't afford an apartment. He wears an ankle monitor so his probation office knows where he is. The office has the bridge coordinates programmed in when he sleeps there. It was his home as far as the probation office was concerned.

Hicks' living arrangement typifies problems that inmates, particularly sex offenders, have finding homes when they get out of prison.

Plessinger said Hicks' predicament is not uncommon among the state's sex offenders. There are 57 homeless sex offenders in the state, including two in Pasco County. She said Hicks was the only homeless sex offender in Hillsborough County. Thirty live on the streets of Miami.

"In Miami," she said, "the greatest concentration of sex offenders without homes is under the Julia Tuttle Causeway," an Interstate 195 connector between Miami and Miami Beach.

Some homeless sex offenders have listed addresses as street corners, in vehicles "or on benches outside probation offices," Plessinger said.

She said Hicks has been diligent in trying to find a home.

Together, at a rate of $20 a day each, Hicks and the other sex offender can afford to stay at the motel, 2909 S. 50th St.

She said it wasn't immediately clear who helped Hicks' situation improve today – whether it was a probation officer with contacts or a friendly motel owner.

Hicks said a probation officer visited him early today – a day after Hicks was contacted by The Tampa Tribune and News Channel 8 about his story – and the probation officer helped line him up a room and a job. The probation officer told him media attention had nothing to do with it, Hicks said.

"He said, 'There's no way I can leave you out here where anything can happen to you,' " Hicks said. "He just had compassion in his heart. He said that field is a dangerous place for an individual to be."

Hicks is not alone in facing challenges finding a home.

"This gentleman is faced with what a lot of inmates are facing after they are discharged," said Lesa Weikel, spokeswoman for the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County. "His special circumstances make it even harder. It all comes down to a lack of affordable housing available in our community.

"It's a barrier to getting a job," Weikel said. "It's a barrier to even attempting to getting place to live."

The ankle monitor on Hicks requires a battery to keep working. Recharging it takes eight hours, and
Hicks, like other homeless sex offenders, had to go to the probation office to do so.

"I'm doing everything in my power to keep my sanity," Hicks said in an interview this week. "I was better off in prison than under this place."

Hicks also had to comply with a curfew, so he couldn't leave the field from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. If he left, the monitoring device would notify authorities, and he would be subject to arrest.

He moved around the field at night, away from snakes and rodents, and hardly slept.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691 or jpoltilove@tampatrib.com.

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