No, You Can't Live Where You Want!

If anyone had told me a few years ago that a small handful of people would be able to dictate where I would live I would have never believed them.  I would have argued with them and told them that this is not a communist country and our government is not so involved in our everyday lives.  Well guess what, I would have been the one who was wrong.

It has been over a year, and my husband is not even allowed to visit our home because of the proximity to the town park.  Keep in mind he has no hands on offenses and there is only one state residency restriction that applies, which says he can not live near a school.  We are over a mile from the school but right next to the park which is surrounded with an eight foot chain link fence.   The federal probation office is the ONLY one telling him he can not live there.  Local law enforcement does not care.  He is a minor blip on their radar of potentially highly dangerous criminals. 

We have accepted that fate and are trying to move on with our lives, but here comes the problem again.  So many of the nicer properties that I have been interested in, upon further examination, are located within a house or two of some kind of park.  So we do not even bother to look at those, while others we have liked and are no where near a park, probation has come back and said that it is too close to a church or some mysterious ball field that is on some old map.  Again, there are no legal reasons for us not be able to live anyway at all, it is just the interpretation of one office and a small group of individuals. 

We have no where to go to fight this without possibly facing ramifications from an angry judge and we have all had more than enough court rooms to last a life time.   So we sit in a state of limbo, under separate roofs, still not really living as a family. 

Other properties we like are in other counties that publish all offenders names and photos on a website regardless of their level.  Level I's here are not supposed to have their information available to the public, but as long as the communities do not publish their exact address then they are within the law.  After fighting to get a Level I designation there is no way we would move somewhere where my husbands photo and name would be published on the internet.  Again putting limitation on where we could possibly live.

Some my say that my husband deserves this, after all he broke the law, but why doesn't the world care where murders live or where drunk drivers might be on the road.  He did something wrong, served his time and is now trying to rebuild his life, when does the punishment end?  How long will it be before politicians can make rules indicating where you can live because of your history, religious beliefs, or even political beliefs?  Only time will tell how far things go before the majority starts to push back to protect the minority or future of their own freedoms.