PALATKA, Fla. — More than a dozen registered sex offenders in Putnam County are looking for a place to live after their homes were condemned, and they were told that they couldn’t stay in tents behind the sheriff’s office.

Some of the sex offenders who spoke with First Coast News said that they were told that if they were still in these tents by 5 p.m. Wednesday, then they would be arrested. The sheriff’s office said no arrests were going to be made, but their property was not going to become a permanent encampment.

When Putnam County Sheriff Gator Deloach first started condemning trailers, he said they were down the street from a volunteer fire station with an Explorer program. The sheriff’s office also said that plumbing in many of the trailers was not sanitary. However, a man on the sex offender registry who spoke with First Coast News said his address was already approved by the sheriff’s office.

All but two of the trailers at CCM Park have been condemned; the people living inside of them who are on the sex offender registry have to find new places to live, which is a sudden shock for people with limited options.

“Jobs are hard to find and places to live are hard to find, this was the benefit, this is what the owner was after was to give people a place to re-establish themselves and get started again and get on their feet and be productive members,” said a man who is a registered sex offender and spoke with us on the condition that we don’t show his face or name because he’s afraid of retaliation from the sheriff’s office.

Throughout portions of our interview, his phone rang with other people on the sex offender list looking for housing options.

“What bothers me is that the sheriff’s office is the one that approved us to live here,” said the man, who did not want his identity to be made public. “Most of these guys are working hard to live a normal life to re-establish themselves in society and be good people.”

He, like many other people who lived in the trailers, has stayed in tents behind the sheriff’s office since the trailers were condemned. That’s not allowed anymore, so he’s once again looking for housing.

“I don’t know, I’ve been so busy trying to get everybody else placed that I don’t know yet,” said the man whose trailer was condemned.

People on the sex offender registry are required to report their address to their probation officer as well as the sheriff’s department, a process that the man we spoke with said can’t be completed in a single day.

“They don’t have any place for us to go,” said the man, who did not want his identity to be made public. “They have that law about you can’t be homeless, but that’s what they’re creating.”

When First Coast News reached out to Putnam County Code Enforcement to ask why the trailers were condemned in the first place, we were transferred to the deputy county manager, but she hasn’t returned our message.

A link to the FDLE Sexual Offender and Predator search can be found here.

All of the tents from behind the sheriff’s office were removed before the 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline.