Brooke Norman, senior in English, was walking to her 6 p.m. class near the Bell Tower Thursday when a homeless man approached her, hugged her, and asked her for money.

“He hugged me, which is really weird, because you don’t just hug a stranger,” Norman said. She gave him her change, then he told her to look for dollars, which she gave him. “I think he said, ‘I thought I saw another dollar when you pulled your wallet out,’ because I had opened my wallet in front of him to give him what I had.”

She gave him the dollar, she said, because he was so close to her.

“He had already touched me,” Norman said. “I hate to be scared of homeless people because I know they can’t help it, but it’s scary to be a girl and be approached by a strange man and have him in my personal space.”

Capt. Jon Barnwell with Campus Police said the department receives complaints from students and visiting parents about homeless people on or near campus. The department receives between 10 and 20 complaints per semester, he said, but it’s not something that’s reported regularly.

“Typically people who are accosted by the transient population usually just walk away,” he said. “When we get involved, it’s typically after aggressive panhandling.”

Barnwell said aggressive panhandling can arise from people who are not from the area giving money to homeless people, not knowing their trends.

“That breeds a mentality with the transient population that everyone they ask for money is supposed to give it to them,” he said. “They’ll get kind of aggressive in getting money.”

Some students may not be aware, however, that some homeless people in the area are convicted sex offenders. More than 660 names of men and women from Wake County compile the North Carolina Sex Offender Registry. Some are registered at homeless shelters.

One homeless shelter, the South Wilmington Street Center for men, is open to any single man 18 years old or older, including sex offenders. According to Carson Dean, director of the shelter, criminal background checks are not performed, and sex offenders are not prohibited from using the shelter.

“Our job is to help guys who want our help to become self-sufficient,” Dean said.

The shelter has 234 beds, 110 of which are for the emergency part of the shelter, where anyone who’s never stayed there before can come in anytime to get a bed for the night. The shelter is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but most men are not allowed in the shelter for most of the day.

“Most guys can’t be in here during the day time,” Dean said, “because we want them looking for work or going to doctor’s appointments.”

The men leave the shelter after breakfast, and do not return to the shelter until 4 or 5 p.m., Dean said.

According to the Sex Offender Registry, 20 convicted sex offenders list the Wilmington Street Center as their place of residence. Of those 20 offenders, two were convicted of first-degree rape, four were convicted of second-degree rape, three were convicted of second-degree sexual offense, one was convicted of sexual battery, one was convicted of sexual offense with certain victims, and nine were convicted of indecent liberty with a minor.

Mike Rakouskas, a parole officer for sex offenders of Wake County, said homeless people don’t necessarily stay in the shelter, so there could be others.

“It feels like a problem, I don’t know how to classify that,” Rakouskas said. “I feel kind of strange knowing that there’s a bunch of sex offenders living at this homeless shelter.”

The shelter, he said, was at one time a point of controversy, but he doesn’t know if it’s like that anymore.

“I can tell you that there was a stretch of time where all across the state, that shelter had a reputation for taking in sex offenders,” Rakouskas said “So if somebody got released from prison anywhere in the state, if they knew about the shelter, they would … transfer down there.”

Rakouskas’s understanding is that that process has stopped, that only sex offenders who are convicted in Wake County can reside at the shelter.

“For a while, it seemed like we’d get calls from across the state from [sex offenders] being funneled into that shelter, which I thought was real scary,” he said.

Every sex offender placed on probation has a set of conditions he or she has to follow, Raskhouskas said. Among those conditions are obvious ones, such as not communicating with or being in the presence of a victim of an offense and not residing in a household with a minor if convicted of child sexual assault. Parole officers are also required to check on offenders.

“We now do an assessment that tells us the risk level [of offenders], determines how often we see them,” Raskhouskas said.

Offenders have to go to the parole offices once a month. If an offender is determined to be low risk, officers have to see them a minimum of every other month at their place of residence. If an offender is classified as high risk, officers are supposed to see the offender every other week, most of the time at their home.

In addition, sex offenders on parole may be required to undergo treatment. The best treatment for sex offenders, Raskouskas said, is group treatment, which is supposedly more effective than a private therapist because offenders can yell at each other and catch each other in lies.

“You might have two or three people who are in the same boat gang up on somebody and say that’s not true,” he said. “It’s considered to be more effective.”

Barnwell said from time to time, members of the homeless population have been caught committing crimes, including assault.

“There truly is the potential [of a threat],” Barnwell said, “but just because one person of a group commits a crime, doesn’t mean everybody will.”

Barnwell said if a homeless person asks for money, students should let the person know they don’t have any money to give them. If the person becomes aggressive, students should report the incident immediately to Campus Police.

“If you have money and are willing to help them, offer to buy a sandwich or something to drink,” Barnwell said. “Or, most importantly … provide that money to local area charities and shelters that provide assistance.”

Raskhouskas began working as a sex offender officer in Raleigh in 1996, supervising 70 offenders. Now, eight officers are supervising 140-plus offenders.

“You hear about sex offenders all the time in the news, and I guess that’s had an impact on policy,” he said. “There’s a lot more resources being devoted to these guys.”