Print edition: 
When the Kansas Department on Aging visited the Wichita Nursing Center in August for its annual inspection, it found more than 50 violations that led to the eventual revocation of the nursing home's license.
But there was something even more troubling in the home that day: Seven registered sex offenders were living among the residents in the home at 2840 S. Hillside.
And it turns out the Wichita Nursing Center isn't the only Kansas nursing home that houses registered offenders. A check of the state's registered offender database by The Eagle found a dozen other sex offenders living in nursing homes across the state.
The realization that there are any sex offenders living among the state's 20,000 nursing home residents has left some state officials wondering if it's time to regulate who is allowed to live in those homes.
Secretary of Aging Shawn Sullivan said nursing homes in Kansas today have no way of knowing when they are about to admit a registered offender.
"I'm not aware of any mechanism in place by the KBI or anybody else that notifies a nursing home if a person on the registry ends up moving into that environment," he said.
Wes Bledsoe of Oklahoma City, who runs a long-term care advocacy group, said he thinks nursing home residents and their families have the right to know if an offender is living in their building.
"I think these guys need a place to go to," he said of the offenders. "But I don't think you want them living across the hall from grandma or grandpa, or maybe even being grandpa's roommate."
The state's registered-offender list shows that four of the seven offenders who were living at the Wichita Nursing Center were from Oklahoma, but it gives no indication of how they ended up in Wichita. Efforts to reach the administrator of the home last week were unsuccessful.
Department on Aging spokeswoman Sara Arif said the seven have been moved to new locations in Kansas and Missouri, but she said privacy laws prevent the department from giving specific addresses.
The KBI registry shows that 19 of the 5,868 people on the registry last week listed a nursing home as their residence. The age of those offenders ranges from 43 to 82, and they have been convicted of crimes ranging from indecent exposure to rape.
Aside from the Wichita Nursing Center, only one nursing home — Medicalodge of Paola — had more than one registered offender. That home housed two — a 43-year-old man convicted of attempted rape in Topeka and a 52-year-old man convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior in Chanute.
State Rep. Bob Bethell, R-Alden, said he wasn't surprised to see a few registered offenders scattered among the state's nursing home population.
"But seven in one home? That kind of surprised me," he said.
Bethell, who has been in the nursing home business for more than 25 years, said it's logical to assume that as sex offenders grow old, some will need the type of care offered only in a nursing home. He said he sees nothing wrong with finding a way to provide that care.
"We want to make sure they get the care they need, but we also want to make sure individuals in nursing facilities get the protection they need," he said.
Bethell said he could envision the state passing a law that would protect nursing home residents but stop short of placing an outright ban on offenders living in assisted living facilities.
"If it would put them out on the street or under a bridge, I'm not convinced that that's the appropriate thing to do," he said.
"I think we would have to make sure to meet the needs of those people, but not put a person who is already compromised in a position of jeopardy."
Mitzi McFatrich, executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care, said she's looked at how other states regulate sex offenders living in nursing homes.
Some states have laws that provide for an isolated facility for sex offenders, she said, while others place notification requirements that must be met when an offender moves into a home.
"We really haven't taken any steps in the state of Kansas to address the issue," she said.
The Oklahoma Legislature in 2008 passed a law that calls for the creation of a nursing home exclusively for those convicted of sex crimes.
But Bledsoe, whose organization pressed for that law, said the facility was never built. When the state sought bids from those who might want to run the home, he said, there were no takers.
Bledsoe said he thinks every state needs to build a separate facility for aging sex offenders.
As the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays approach, he said, school, church and scouting groups are probably already making plans to visit nursing homes.
He said he wondered what might have happened had any of those visits been to the Wichita Nursing Center had it not been closed.
"How many of those children and their families would have known that there were seven offenders living there?" he asked.
