Sex offenders appear to be taking advance of the homeless vouchers in the Democrat-run state of California, with rape cases leading a local town’s Republican mayor to threaten to ditch the program.
Two sex offenders on homeless vouchers reportedly raped a minor girl in a motel in El Cajon, a city of about 100,000 people near San Diego, California, Fox News reported.
Because of that and other rape cases, Mayor Bill Wells, a Republican, informed that he will most probably terminate the voucher program for housing homeless in local hotels.
Wells told the outlet he would likely do that even if it causes legal action against him by the state of California.
He revealed his administration already tried pushing back on the program, but California’s State Attorney General, Rob Bonta, acted on the request of San Diego County. He came to the town and issued a cease and desist order.
Wells said he was now likely to just “defy the state” and terminate the homeless voucher program in his town “no matter what.”
Two men housed by PATH (“People Assisting the Homeless”), as California’s program is called – 70-year-old Michael Inman and 34-year-old Lawrence Cantrell – have been nabbed for raping a young girl in a Motel 6 bedroom.
Cantrell admitted to the crime and showed the police smartphone footage he took. He was previously kicked out of another program hotel, due to an “altercation.”
The other suspect, Inman, also confessed and told the investigators there have also been other rape victims in recent weeks.
El Cajon’s GOP mayor first raised the alarm on the risks caused by California’s voucher program back in September 2022. He emphasized San Diego County had been bussing homeless individuals to hotels in his town without even informing him.
In his new remarks on the matter, Wells pointed out his prior warnings that the homeless voucher program would cause “some kind of a crisis.”
He described what had happened over the weekend as “pretty terrible,” as last year he warned that someone would likely “get hurt or killed” because of California’s program.
Wells also stressed his town makes up only about 3% of the population of San Diego County, but up to 50% of the county’s voucher recipients had been accommodated in hotels there.