Sacramento Report
by Francisco Silva
The governor’s recent signing of AB 488 (Parra) effectively expands the scope of Megan’s Law by requiring information about sex offenders to be available on the Internet. The new law requires specific information about persons required to register as sex offenders to be posted on the Attorney General’s Web site, http://caag.state.ca.us, on or before July 1, 2005. The information that must be made available to the public includes the sex offender’s name and known aliases, a photograph, a physical description (including gender and race), date of birth, criminal history related to sex offenses, the community of residence and the zip code in which the sex offender resides. Currently this information is usually available only by personally visiting local law enforcement offices or by calling a 900-telephone number. Under this bill, the public will now be granted access to the registered home address of those sex offenders who fall under a specified category of offenses, generally believed to be the most serious offenses.
On its surface, Megan’s Law appears to be unrelated to housing. However, a close reading of this law demonstrates that California has given rental property owners contradictory legal directives with respect to the housing of convicted sex offenders. On the one hand, California law provides that owners may be held liable for failing to protect a tenant from a known risk. In light of this directive, and because of the high recidivism rate of sex offenders, a multifamily housing owner would rightfully conclude that he/she must refuse to rent to a known sex offender in order to protect the tenants from harm. On the other hand, Megan’s law itself can be construed as prohibiting an owner from using the information obtained on the list to discriminate against a sex offender. The law imposes damages and a civil penalty of up to $25,000 for doing so.
While owners may be inclined to tackle the vagueness in the law by implementing a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, such a policy will be more difficult to sustain in light of the expansive reach of the new law. The fact that the sex offender information will be easily available on the Internet and will include the sex offender’s specific address greatly increases the likelihood that the public, including tenants and neighboring property owners, will discover the sex offender status of existing and prospective tenants. Thus, owners will have to choose between evicting the sex offender (thereby facing a potential lawsuit by the sex offender) and encouraging an exodus of existing tenants who refuse to live in close proximity to a registered sex offender. Moreover, the rental property may be exposed to vandalism, public protest and other forms of public scorn that will jeopardize the owner’s ability to operate the property safely and profitably.
In light of the problems created by Megan’s law with respect to multifamily housing, the California Apartment Association (CAA) is assessing various options to solve the contradictory directives in the law and, in the meantime, will provide guidance to its members. CAA will continue to study and monitor this issue and will keep you posted.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. Francisco Silva is the vice president and counsel of legislative affairs for CAA. Copyright © 2004 by the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.