MANSFIELD — How shocked would you be to be in your backyard with your children only to look over and see three sex offenders living in a halfway house peering out their window?
To make matters worse — no one told you what their background really was.
That’s the reality for one Mansfield woman and her five children.
She says she’s doesn’t want sex offenders living anywhere near her house or kids.
The city of claims it didn’t know the offenders were moving in either.
Mansfield’s three new residents come from Michigan, Columbus and Cleveland. All three are sex offenders, one of them a convicted child sex offender.
The Ohio Department of Corrections says it finds it hard to believe that city leaders didn’t know the halfway house was opening.
They shared documents with WKYC, asking city leaders for permission to open the home and asking for feedback.
Mansfield leaders say they never knew the house was opening. It has room for 24 beds.
The city says leaders are choosing areas in fiscal emergency to place these offenders, not in affluent areas.
The city says the offenders living there had not registered which is why the mother living next door did not receive any notification.