Who we are
Why this exists
Georgia law bars many people on the sex offender registry from living within 1,000 feet of a school, child care program, church, park, pool or other place where children gather. In many metro Atlanta cities, that rules out more than half of all homes.
Finding a place that meets the rule is hard, and most people have no way to check an address before they bring it to law enforcement for approval. Every address that's turned down means more time without a home, and a wrong guess can cost much more. Families, landlords and caseworkers run into the same wall.
SettledGA is a free pre-check. Type an address, see what's nearby and how far away it is, and walk into the conversation with your supervising officer knowing more.
Run by the community
There's no company behind SettledGA, no ads and no investors. It's built and kept up by volunteers and by the people who use it.
Every time someone tells us a church closed, a daycare moved or a place is missing, the map gets better for the next person. Our research checks run around the clock, a person reviews every report, and everything we change is posted in What's new.
What we're building toward
- Every county in Georgia, not just the ones we cover today.
- A map you can trust. Every place backed by an official list, a second source, or a check with a link you can see.
- Finding a home, not just ruling one out. A way to find rentals that clear the rules, with landlords who choose to be listed.
- Plain answers for everyone, in English and Spanish, with the offices, legal help and housing resources in every county.
- Evidence for a better conversation. Maps that show how much of each city is off-limits, so families, advocates and lawmakers can see what the law does on the ground.
Our view on the law
We think the rule goes further than it needs to, most of all by treating every church like a school. Read why churches shouldn't be on the list.
What we're not
SettledGA isn't a government agency, isn't affiliated with any sheriff's office or supervision office, and isn't legal advice. Only law enforcement can approve an address. And it's never a tool to find, follow or harass anyone.
Work with us
Legal aid groups, reentry and housing programs, researchers and anyone with better data: we'd love to hear from you at [email protected].
Our data
Every check looks up restricted places in our own database. We build it from official lists, maps and business listings, then check the doubtful ones with research and with reports from people like you.
What decides if a place counts
| Source | What it covers | On its own, a place it lists is |
|---|---|---|
| Georgia's child care list (DECAL) | Every licensed child care center | Confirmed |
| Federal school lists (NCES) | Public and private schools | Confirmed |
| OpenStreetMap | Parks, playgrounds, pools, libraries, churches and schools mapped by volunteers | Confirmed except schools only it has |
| Business listings (Overture Maps) | Small churches, daycares and other places the maps miss | Needs checking until a second source or our research agrees |
| County tax records | Church and school-board land in Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Cherokee | Needs checking land alone; it also gives property lines |
| SettledGA research | Places only one source listed, checked against their websites and directories, with links | Confirms it, or removes it if it's closed or not a restricted place |
| Your reports | Missing or wrong places sent through Feedback | Reviewed by a person, then added or hidden |
Used, but never decides what counts
- Esri finds your address on the map and draws the satellite view.
- Geoapify is the backup address finder.
- County parcel maps give property lines, so we can measure line to line.
- Google Maps and Google Earth only open when you tap a link. We send them nothing.
Counties in the database
Outside these counties we look places up live on OpenStreetMap instead. It misses more small churches and home-based child care, and results there say so.
Research checks run every two hours.
What's new
Bug fixes, data updates and places we've verified from your reports.
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Privacy
What we keep, and what we don’t.
- No account, no ads, no cookies that track you.
- Address lookups pass through our server to Esri (or Geoapify as a backup), which finds the address on the map. We don't store or log what you type. To find places near the pin, the pin's position goes to our server, which looks them up in our own database; nothing is stored. In areas not in the database yet, your browser asks OpenStreetMap services directly; like any website, they see the map area and your IP address. Map images come from OpenStreetMap and fonts from Google Fonts.
- Property lines. In counties that publish their tax parcel maps (Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Cherokee so far), our server asks the county's public parcel map which parcel the pin is on. Only the pin's position and the house number are sent; we keep nothing.
- County (optional). If you choose one when you agree to the terms, we add one to a count for that county for the month. Nothing else is stored with it, not your IP address and not your searches.
- Searches by county. Each new search adds one to a monthly count for the county it's in. We don't keep the address, the map position, your IP address, or anything else about the search. These counts tell us which areas to update first.
- Human check: Cloudflare Turnstile confirms you're a person when you open the site. Cloudflare sees your browser's details to do this; we only get a yes or no.
- Daily search limit: we count searches using a scrambled code of your connection that changes every day and expires overnight. We don't store your IP address.
- Offense date stays in your browser. It's never sent or saved.
- Recent checks are off unless you turn them on, and even then they're kept only in this browser.
- Issue reports email us only what you type into the form.
- Answers and added places. When you answer “is this still here?” or add a place, we keep the place and your answer, not who you are. A scrambled code of this visit limits how many you can send in a day and is deleted after two weeks.
- Language. Your English or Spanish choice is kept only in this browser.
- Visit counts. To see which pages and tools help, we count page visits and a few actions (like how many checks were run and how they came out) as daily totals, plus the site that sent you, phone or computer, and language. No cookies, no ID for you or your visit, never the address you type, and we don't store your IP address. To tell a new visit from the next page, this browser tab remembers when you last loaded a page; that stays in the tab and is never sent. Browsers set to Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control aren't counted.