New neighbors not welcome
<p>Danielle Howell, of Coeur d'Alene, pauses after surveying the area where a sleeping registered sex offender was allegedly startled by her 12-year-old daughter near a play area that neighborhood children use.</p>
<p>House manager Kenneth Ashby feels his living situation has come under attack by neighbors following a recent incident that lead to his house mate being jailed.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Some neighbors in Coeur d'Alene were surprised this week to learn that a house on their block is now home to men recently released from prison.
The 17th Street residents were upset to find out Wednesday that Robert Obeid, the owner of the little yellow house near theirs, is now offering it as transitional rental housing for former inmates.
"This is a nice neighborhood, and now our children are prisoners," said Jarrod Womack, a father of four whose eldest is 12. "We can't let them out alone."
There are 16 children living within 300 feet of the house at 306 17th St., Womack said. His own family lives across the street.
"The laws protect these guys, and our kids lose their right to be safe when they're outside playing," Womack said.
The residents learned who was living in the house after one of the neighborhood children, a 12-year-old girl and her dog, discovered what appeared to be a drunk, homeless man. He was passed out in a play fort the kids on the block built under a group of trees in a vacant lot, a place the children call "the club."
"She screamed and grabbed the dog," said the girl's mother, Danielle Howell.
The man took off, Howell said, and went to the little yellow house.
Coeur d'Alene Police Department officers responded and arrested the man, T.J. Roy, a 38-year-old male with a previous Idaho address in Kuna, on a probation violation. Records show that Roy's prior offense was driving under the influence in Boundary County.
A police officer returned to speak with Howell.
"He said it's a halfway house for people who have just been released from prison and sex offenders, and there is a sex offender living there right now," Howell said.
Howell and the other residents became more concerned when they learned that registered sex offender Jason Anthony Edwards, 41, is now living in the house. In 2009, Edwards was charged in Kootenai County with committing lewd conduct with a minor child under 16.
The neighbors are mobilizing, Howell said, making phone calls, planning a petition signing.
"It's a really family-oriented street. This is the weirdest place to put something like this," Howell said. "My issue is I really feel that if you're going to do this, you should at least give the people in the neighborhood the common courtesy to let them know."
Property owner and landlord Obeid was not immediately available for comment.
Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood told The Press there are homes like this throughout the community, and they are not illegal.
The police department is notified of some, but not all, she said.
The owners of transitional homes like the one on 17th Street have advised the corrections department that they are willing to rent to offenders ready to re-enter society, said Eric Kiehl, Idaho Department of Correction district manager for the state's five northern counties.
"Nobody wants those guys in their neighborhoods," Kiehl said. "Most of the time they don't have anywhere else to go. They have to go somewhere."
The Idaho corrections department supervises about 1,500 convicted felons in North Idaho, and most of them are living in this area, he said.
"Probation and parole officers go out to these homes on a regular basis," Kiehl said.
While in prison, these offenders were not just being warehoused, he said. They received the treatment they were assessed to need - cognitive therapy, treatment for sex offenders and drug users - to prepare them to go back out into the community.
The corrections department sometimes pays an offender's first month of rent in his or her new home, Kiehl said, so the state can avoid keeping them in prison, and paying for that cost, longer than they have to.
Kenneth Ashby, residential manager of the house on 17th Street, said former prisoners are not the only people who can live in the house.
"It's a structured environment in a clean and sober home," Ashby said. "It's not an institution. It's not a facility. It's a residence, in a residential area."
There are strict, mandatory house rules all residents must abide by - a 10 p.m. curfew, zero tolerance of drugs and alcohol, pre-payment of the monthly rent and maintenance of a peaceful and respectable presence in the neighborhood are a few. For those who are on probation or parole, Ashby said, the restrictions and requirements that have been placed upon them become part of their rules for living at the house.
"We operate completely within the guidelines and work very closely with the Idaho Department of Correction. The people that live here are kept under a spotlight," Ashby said.
Those who violate their parole go back to prison, and they don't get another chance at supervised living in the community, he said. When they get out without any time left on their sentences, they can live anywhere, without the spotlight, and they do.
"We're actually the neighborhood's advocates," he said.