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Apr 22, 2008 10:17 am US/Central
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Alvarado City Council Denies Zoning For Shelter
Woman Plans To Appeal; Says She Only Wants To Help
ALVARADO (CBS 11 News) ―
Everyone who attended the City Council meeting in Alvarado Monday night
seemed to agree that Brenda Ford is trying to do the right thing, but not everyone agrees with where she is trying to do it.
For the past couple of years, Ford has opened her home to battered women and their children.
"God just told me that I needed to help these women," she said.
"That's why they don't leave because they have nowhere to go."
When someone donated an abandoned medical office to Ford's cause, she was beyond excited.
"I don't understand why people don't get behind somebody when they're trying to do good?" resident Eddie Shivers asked at the meeting.
When Ford started renovating the building in the 200 block of East Purdom Street to turn it into a shelter, A Higher Place, many of her neighbors, however, weren't so thrilled and took the issue to city leaders.
The topic got heated during Monday's meeting with the council finally siding with the upset neighbors.
Homeowner Audrey LaFountain led the fight against the shelter.
"My husband got very angry and said 'I'm not living here,' so the house went on the market."
They live right next door and "want my home to stay a home where I can plant flowers, where I can work out in the garden, where I'm not afraid of some man coming down the street with guns in his hands trying to get in there and steal his wife away."
Cynthia Bates also opposed Ford running the shelter.
"She doesn't have the experience to maintain it."
An unidentified opponent added: "It can't be a safe place if everyone knows where it is."
Council members said they couldn't grant Ford the commercial zoning she would need for the shelter because they would have no control over what it would become.
"A 7-Eleven can go in there if this is approved," Alvarado mayor Tom Durington argued.
"My heart just sunk, because now I have a white elephant," a dejected Ford said. "I mean, what am I going to do now with 8,376-square feet where I can't get any zoning?"
Ford added she will find a way to appeal this decision, but won't give up on the idea. She is trying to get another piece of land in Cleburne for the shelter.
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