By Sherry Koonce

The News staff writer

In a month designated to bring awareness to abused children, signs posted in the front lawns of Beauxart Gardens residences this week delivered a message from the homeowners: Not in my neighborhood.

Roughly half of the homes along winding North Garden Road displayed signs protesting a Nederland church’s plans to establish a foster group home in the neighborhood.

“My heart is very heavy. Never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate people fighting against helping children,” the Rev. Joe Roberts, pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Nederland, said.

Roberts said the church recently purchased a large brick home in the Beauxart Gardens neighborhood between U.S. 69 and FM 823 for $230,000. The home will be utilized as a foster care facility for elementary school-age children who have been taken from their parents.

A foster parent will be on-site at the church group home at all times, and church members who have been trained by the state will be available to help the foster parent.

“We are specializing in kids that have been abandoned, mentally, physically or sexually abused, or have been neglected,” Roberts said.

The home, which sits on a 2.5-acre lot, will be licensed for up to 12 children. The church hopes to add another group home on the property in the future, he said.

Those plans have neighbors worried about safety issues and property values.

“My family is my number one concern to me,” Lance Sheppard, 36, said. “It’s not that we don’t want these children to get the help they need, we just believe a rural setting would be more beneficial to the children.”

Sheppard’s home is directly across the street from the proposed group home.

He said he worried about the type of children that would be housed there and the effect those children might have on his 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter.

“We were told they wanted to put a couple of trailers behind the home with the goal of eventually housing 120 kids in a centralized place,” Sheppard said. “The picture the church painted for us and the real picture I think are totally different.”

Roberts said the group home applied to take children in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades who have been designated by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to be at a basic care level.