SAN FRANCISCO -- While Cary Verse is being forced to move to yet another home, the third graduate of California's mandatory treatment program for sexually violent predators is ready to be released stirring up concerns among the citizens of Vacaville.

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A Thursday hearing was scheduled in Marin County regarding the proposed release of Patrick Ghilotti, a convicted sex offender with a history of violent assaults stretching back to the late 1970s.

Ghilotti, 47, is a member of a prominent North Bay construction company family and has expressed interest in living with his wife in Vacaville.

Ghilotti's planned release has kept the debate alive over whether or not California's controversial treatment program really works. The problem doesn't seem to be the program itself, but finding a place for its graduates to live once they are released.

The first graduate of the program lives in a trailer on prison grounds. The second graduate -- Verse -- is being moved to his fifth home in less than two months since his release.

Under a controversial 1996 law, Brian DeVries, Verse and Ghilotti were diverted into treatment at Atascadero State Hospital after serving lengthy prison sentences for violent sex crimes. The law promised they could earn their release if they completed treatment, received approval from their doctors and agreed to live under strict conditions and stay out of trouble.

They did just that -- and more. DeVries and Ghilotti were surgically castrated to show their commitment never to reoffend. Verse became a devout Christian. After six years, DeVries and Verse were deemed model patients by the hospital staff and declared ready to return to their communities.

But state officials faced months of trouble finding the men new homes, and residents protested in each place that was chosen.

DeVries ended up in a trailer at the edge of Soledad State Prison and Verse has been bounced around from a highway motel to an apartment to a halfway house.

"We're going to place the person wherever we can find housing," said Nora Romero, spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health. "It's very clear to us there is not going to be any community that's going to accept a sexually violent predator."

Many say the law has failed them and was never intended to rehabilitate sex offenders, but to lock them up indefinitely.

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Regardless, it now may be more vulnerable than ever to legal challenge. If it's overturned as unconstitutional, the doors at Atascadero could be unlocked, releasing more than 400 dangerous rapists and child molesters without any supervision -- something no one wants.

"If these guys can't get out and into a reasonable, community-based treatment program, I think the program is unconstitutional," said Brian Matthews, public defender for DeVries. "Then it becomes preventative detention."

Many argue the community fallout was predictable and could have been prevented with better preparation, organization and education.

The law requires sexually violent predators to be released into the community in which they committed their crimes. The Department of Mental Health, which oversees the treatment program, said DeVries and Verse were rejected by dozens of landlords before finding their current living situations. Verse, who was moved secretly and without any advance notification to law enforcement officials, was forced to move out of a Mill Valley motel and two residences in Oakland after community protests.

"They're in the community without being in the community.

They're pariahs," said Jake Goldenflame, a convicted child molester who now runs a prison outreach program for sex offenders.

He said what's missing from California's program is community outreach.

"Bring the offender, have him at a meeting, listen to people's concerns and apprehensions. Get the guy to answer their questions," he said. "People are basically fair. They'll respond.... You have to earn their trust in advance. You don't just surprise them."

Romero said the department would consider organizing community meetings.

"We have nothing to lose," she said.

Alan Charmatz, prosecutor in the Ghilotti case, said a state-run halfway house is the answer.

"It's not the law that's flawed, it's the implementation," Charmatz said.

In Washington state, a handful of sex predators live in such a facility on McNeil Island, also home to a state prison. But it's a stopgap measure while the state tries to find a permanent home for the halfway house.

"Nobody really thought this law out," said Jean Matulis, a lawyer who represents several sex predators at Atascadero. "It was a panic button, a political thing. This law is counterproductive.

"It doesn't work."