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Neighborhood divided over application to open transitional home for women

Some neighbors are not happy about a non-profit's plan to legally convert a home into a transitional house for women escaping prostitution and human trafficking.

There is a divide on Louisville's Date Street.

"Take her stuff somewhere else," said Dino Johnson.  He put up signs in his yard, protesting against his neighbor Angela Renfro who runs the Kristylove Foundation two doors down from Johnson.

"I will not give up on the young women and the children and the mothers who are out there suffering from some kind of trauma," Renfro told WHAS11.

Kristylove is a non-profit that helps victims of  human trafficking, prostitution, addiction and more, but Johnson is upset with what's happening close to his home.

"They open up all these houses down here in our neighborhood and get these houses for cheap rent and start hoarding people in here for a profit and it's all over the west end," Johnson claimed.

Not so says Renfro, who's applied for a conditional use permit to legally make the home into a transitional house for women.

"We are more than a recovery house. We are a safe place," she said.

Renfro told us talk of drug use and other illegal activity at the home isn't true. She invited the public to tour the home, giving them a chance to see what services she provides.  "We want the community and also the Commonwealth, the state of Kentucky, to know all of the services we provide here from homeless youth, women who have been in sex trafficking," Renfro said.

Johnson gathered signatures from homeowners up and down the block hoping to block Renfro's efforts to get the permit.

"We are tired of the same old show on our street," he said.

Renfro will go before the city's zoning commission in about a month.

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