A controversial rooming house on 24th Street

I would just point out that everyone looking for more “open” zoning around the neighborhood might want to think about situations such as this one.

The following properties are listed as owned by ACH, followed by previous listed owner:
5320 Media Rd (Isaiah Hilliard)
2903 Hanes Ave (Isaiah Hilliard)
3504 Chamberlayne Ave (Grace Hilliard)
1407 N 27th St (Isaiah Hilliard & Lee Blanche)
408 N 24th (Isaiah Hilliard)
816 Akron St (Isaiah and Blanche again)
1311 Idlewood Ave (Isaiah)
811 W Lancaster Rd (Isaiah)

All the property transfer dates are 12/17/08.
I think we have a little family business going here.

Two of those guys lived over in Battery Park until a few months ago. I had to call the state to them to update their records because I saw them moving out. Second chance housing has a couple of houses over here in Battery Park.

I’m not a fan of group homes, but I will say the house didn’t cause any issues.

One thing I have have noticed about the state’s registry is the people list a home address (rent a room) but they actual don’t live there, they live at another address.

Aside from the sex offender issue. We do find an increase in “rooming houses” when their is a lack of affordable housing – whether that be rent or owning. Sure no one wants a “rooming house” on their street – but what is a person to do?

This is a tough issue. No matter how I look at it, it seems like a lose/lose proposition. The whole sex registry thing seems like a good idea, until you realize that everyone knowing this stuff can affect your property values. All this collateral damage is what worries me, and yet these folks have to live somewhere when they are released. I don’t quite know how to think about it all and regardless, is there anything the community can or should do?

I have been on the Virginia Sex Offender website today, and encourage each of you to do the same. This house is one block away from mine, and I actually “welcomed” one of the men when I saw him moving in. I had no idea he was a registered sex offender, as most of the neighbors have no idea. Thank you John M., again, for keeping us informed – I have made enough copies of the 4 men’s Sex Offender Registries (with photos) to distribute to the surrounding few blocks.

According to Channel 6, they have to vacate by the end of the month, but surely they will just “relocate” to another home owned by this “faith based group.” A true faith based group would not only be interested in helping these offenders, but in keeping neighborhoods and their residents safe and informed. Where is the supervision for these men? Where is the counseling from this “faith based group?”

Two of these men have a history of criminal sex acts against children. Two have a history of aggravated sexual assault. Residents in a community (myself included) MUST check the registry and check it often. You will be surprised and sickened by how many violent sex offenders we have living in Church Hill. And Lauren, I also hate to see my property value go down, but I hate more the knowledge that I have been walking by that home every day after work, thinking that was the “safe” direction to walk my dog at night….having no idea the potential danger that was footsteps away.

The real issue here is ACH. They are harboring dangerous individuals with no warning to surrounding residents. What they are doing is at best disgusting, and at worst criminal. Does anyone know what steps we, as a community, should be taking to shut ACH down?

However, I will say there is a way that rooming house laws could be applied to both students and sex offenders fairly- if landlords in single family-zoned districts were made to apply for landlord permits for each unit.
Violations by landlords or tenants could lead to termination of the permit. It would help control landlords, tenants, and earn a few bucks for the City budget.

Anonymous – if you are truly asking whether or not an outdated law is being applied correctly, I think we can all agree that it probably is not. But if your question is whether there is a difference between a group of college students living in a house together, and a group of CONVICTED SEX OFFENDERS living in a house together – the difference is obvious. I’d be interested to know how far your home is from 408 N. 24th.

There is no way to argue that these CONVICTED SEX OFFENDERS living unsupervised in an unmarked home in a neighborhood full of children and women is a safe idea. Do these men need somewhere to live? Absolutely. Do they deserve a chance to receive appropriate counseling and get their lives on track? Of course. Is there any chance that this living situation is healthy for them or their neighbors, or will lead to their rehabilitation? Not at all.

All I can say is that I have seen this happen (college students) on our block. It has calmed down a bit now but sometimes it increases and wonder how safe this is or how many beds are actually in there – or is everyone sleeping together? The landlord is only looking at the bottom line as to how much they can get and doubt they do any screening so who knows what is living there? Yet you rarely see them on the property doing regular maintenance or socializing with their tenants to know what is happening or who these people really are they rent to. Only after the place is empty you see them over there. Poor management and GREED.

I live next door to one of Isaiah Hilliard’s properties. It is currently vacant (but kept up), but for the past year, it was operated as a halfway house. Now, I found out about the house after I moved in, and, as you can imagine, was a little worried. I’d like to note that the program, while possibly not legal with the rooming house aspect, was very controlled. And, there were a few sex offenders there at different times.

For those concerned with the ACH program, the men next door had a very strict regimen, which included the following:
– first, the program didn’t accept everybody. They took in men (most over 40 years of age) who were willing to abide by the rules and participate.
– had to acquire a job (or be in job training)
– had to attend a church of their choice regularly
– no women, booze, or drugs (any one of the three would get them discharged immediately)
– attendance to group counseling
– there was always a house manager

There was only one time that we had an issue: one of the men was obviously on a controlled substance. I contacted the house manager and, within one day, that man was discharged from their house.

I am a female, and neither my overprotective husband nor I ever had anything to worry about from this house. The program manager (who oversees all the houses) stopped by and gave us his card. He told us that, if there was ever any issue, he or the house manager would see to it immediately.

“In fact, I can only assume that is the case, based on your lack of concern for the safety of the neighborhood versus the lack of equal residential rights for these men.”

You are assuming quite a bit there. But I am really not interested in debating you about felon rights or neighborhood safety. You can have those high horses all by yourself.

All I want to do is offer the landlord permit idea as an alternative to the “rooming house” law, which, historically, has been applied in a selective and often racist fashion.
Landlord permits are also a possible solution to other neighborhood issues.

Not to condone sex offenders, but has anyone considered how hard it’d be to get housing after you’re registered? It’s pretty difficult to meet anyone willing to rent to you (as most landlords would do background checks, etc.) Maybe these men just found this place would take them in for a while, and are trying to get back to living normally.

Also, you should realize that most assault/rape occurs between known couples – spouses, significant others, not someone you don’t know. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t bother me to know these men are by my house… just most people know you first.. its your husband or boyfriend who is more likely to do anything than some random men down the block…

I’d also like to point out that all 4 of these men were convicted of sexual crimes against children. I wasn’t aware, but the sexual battery charges against 2 of the men are involving children between the ages of 13-15. One man raped a child he was custodian of, and one man was involved in the financing, production, or distribution of child pornography.

Given the nature of these crimes, I think it SHOULD be very difficult to find a place to live.

And an assault happening between known couples only means that the offender is willing to sexually attack someone he is supposed to love personally – which is almost more disgusting if you think about it.

These men do not have a “problem” – they have a sexual preference for violence and control. That does not go away, and certainly not when you are surrounded by others with the same preference.

I would like to note that to view the SO registry you agree that you will not use the information to harrass or intimidate the offenders. There is a specific instruction regarding the copying and distributing of this information. It is a fine line, but I would not make any more photo copies. If the copies are distributed to someone who then harrasses or intimidates one of the residents, you might be civilly liable.

I am not an “expert”, nor do I have a specific idea of where these individuals should live that would best suit them. In case you have misread the numerous posts here, this is not one person in one home, but at least four in a home not suited to that need. It would be difficult to argue the fact that they should have (and need) a housing manager/counselor on site who is not also a convicted sex offender.

This is where I live, and I am now scared to death to go for a walk after dark.

Having said that, I am uninterested in debating this issue further with “neighbors” who are attacking viewpoints from behind their convenient little walls of anonymity or smugly worded posting aliases. It is very hard to take anyone seriously when they are unwilling to stand behind their words.

I attended the CAPS meeting last night. Thanks to the hard work of the CAPS team (in particular Earl Weaver and Sergeant Prince), the home owner was served with a warrant for illegally operating a rooming house and is to appear in court June 11. He has promised to get the men out of the house. The CAPS team said the warrant was expedited due to the number of citizen complaints. So thank you to all of you that spoke out. I watch children walk by that house everyday on their way to school and am so relieved. We’ll all have to keep posted to see if Isaiah Hilliard actually gets the men out.

I just wanted to take the opportunity, not that anyone would ever read this, that I was one of the men living at the house on 24th street. It’s been nearly five years now since my release and I’m still here… working… completed probation/parole… treatment programs… among other things and doing quite well.

I totally understood the concern of the community while this whole fiasco was going on. ACH left us with literally a few days to vacate the property after failing to find another place for us to stay (giving each of us a letter stating we had graduated the program). I had no money, no credit, no job, but was able to secure an apartment, in a drug infested neighborhood, with NO program, NO rules, or NO supervision.

I’m disgusted at the way the neighborhood treated us. No one came to talk to you? Well guess what, no one took the time to get to know us either. We all did bad things… but we aren’t bad people and probably posed as much threat to the neighborhood as anyone else (I don’t say that factually, but confidently).

Thank you for making my transition back into society much more difficult than what it could have been. But I survived, and I’m still here.

^^ Yup. Pretty much what he said.

Alex, you pulled that number out of your butt. The recidivism rates for new sex crimes by previously convicted sex offenders doesn’t even come remotely close to that. The average sex offender likes to, shall we say, grow his own victims. A child has much more to fear from Mom’s new boyfriend or creepy Uncle Tim or a bored brother or cousin than some stranger off the street. A fifteen-year-old boy messing with his thirteen-year-old girlfriend can find himself on the list–in fact a high number of registered sex offenders are teenagers. Also keep in mind that failing to register as a sex offender is considered … a sex offense and is counted thusly.

Good study from several different states, easy to read too:

http://www.corrections.com/news/article/24500-facts-and-fiction-about-sex-offenders

First of all let me thank you for the responses from my post the other day. I really didn’t expect anyone to see it, respond to it, or pass through the moderator. I am really impressed. Thank you all.

I did not mean to leave the impression that I was a victim, I do and have taken full responsibility for my crime and live with the effects of it every day, the same as my victim and the community. So please accept my sincere apology. I accept that there are things that I, as a registered sex offender, have to endure. For example, not being able to live near a school or playground, registering as a violent offender every ninety days, having home visits as well as visits to my employer twice yearly even though I am no longer on probation. Limited job and housing prospects. Of course I am responsible for the outrage of the community and the ‘scorn’ of the members of it upon myself. I accept that. What I do not accept responsibility for is how people in the community choose to handle these situations. Those actions you alone are responsible for.

This is a very old thread, but it is still a very relevant topic and I’m pleased to see the conversation here outlining both sides of the issue. Obviously, the Church Hill community is a tight knit one, and it is a great thing for me to see, even concerning the issue I was involved in.

My point of the original post was not so much the concern of the neighborhood, I understood the concern, but more so how the whole thing was handled. ACH was operating an illegal rooming house; there is no dispute of that fact. What you all need to realize is that we were approved through probation and parole to be living there long before we were released. So, not only was ACH at fault, the City of Richmond was in on it too. As a matter of fact, a very well respected retired Henrico County officer was on the Board of Directors for ACH. Illegal rooming houses are all over the city. Many of them housing those who have recently been released from prison, and the city knows every one of them, believe me. Probation and parole allowed them to go there. What I can see from all of this is sometimes the city turns a blind eye to these houses, because if they didn’t have them, many of us would have been on the street or under government assistance which obviously is a great burden on the taxpayer and increases the possibility of crime. Plus, you have the benefit of the men under a structured environment with stringent rules that, if broken, would have you removed from the house in a nanosecond. So, it’s a complicated issue; illegal houses, or felons on the street with no structure or help. Think about it seriously, which would you choose?

I’m not saying they were right, but sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two evils. Some things just aren’t as cut and dry as we would want them to be. Should I be responsible for the actions of ACH or the city because I’m the sex offender? No… I won’t… neither will either of them accept any responsibility in this matter.

Since you are a tight community, maybe you all could discuss what to do when a sex offender moves in the neighborhood. None of us expect arms open wide accepting us back into society. But we have to live somewhere. I believe the group of men that were housed with me on 24th street would have been a tremendous benefit to the community, if we would have been given the chance.

Like what we did? NO. Be concerned? YES. Be aware? YES. But please allow someone who is now living in the community, to be a part of it and make it better. Help them if you can, regardless of how you feel. It’s what we’re supposed to do as human beings. Just because we at the house failed at that same principle at some point in our life, doesn’t mean the community owes us the same in return, no matter how justified that may be. We’re better than that. Church Hill is better than that.

The city pulling a political move to remove us to appease the community was in my opinion, plain wrong. All it did was move the same sex offenders to another part of town living next door to someone else’s children… but without the benefit of structure and assistance needed to get back on our feet. It didn’t solve anything.

Let’s figure out a way to do better… make those in our community better. If negative people can affect the neighborhood in a negative way, so can positive people who care about each other affect the neighborhood in a positive way.

Personally, I loved living there. I enjoyed your community very much. Especially after the environment that I had been in for nearly nine years, and the few months prior in the other houses operated by ACH which is a whole other story. It was one of my most favorite places in Richmond that I’ve ever lived. I’d love to come back and be welcome. Y’all should be proud of your community, and I know you are.

Thank you for reading and considering.

Some crimes are more horrendous than others but people need to look in their own backyard first before making judgment calls. People do change but also understand the restrictions by law. Depending on the town or neighborhood, it can be a Catch 22 or a No Win and that is when the courts who puts on these restrictions should step in to find appropriate housing “before” they move in.