For 12 years, the Interfaith Hospitality Network has been serving homeless families in Washington County by providing temporary shelter in churches and connecting them with social services that help them get back to independent living.

IHN has long recognized a need for its services in southern Allegheny County and wants to start a network in the area, Executive Director Susan Donnan said.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Susan Donnan, of the Interfaith Hospitality Network, and the Rev. Paul Thwaite, assistant pastor of the Pleasant Hills Community Presbyterian Church, at the church-owned home on Audrey Drive which Mrs. Donnan's organization wishes to use as a day center for its program. Click photo for larger image.

But a zoning conflict and opposition from people in Pleasant Hills could put a hold on a proposal by the network to open a family day center in a house owned by the Pleasant Hills Community Presbyterian Church at 36 Audrey Drive.

The day center would not provide housing, but would be a place for families to spend their days as they search for jobs and housing, and where they can obtain transportation to jobs or schools, Mrs. Donnan said.

There would be a full-time social worker at the center who would help the families find permanent housing. The families would be able to use the shower facilities at the home.

The property would have to be rezoned from residential to public use, which recognizes such facilities as churches, schools, libraries and government buildings. The rest of the Pleasant Hills Community Presbyterian Church property is zoned public.

In order to get the zoning change, however, the church needs an exemption from the municipal requirement that parcels be no smaller than 1 acre, said Paul Kueser, chairman of the Pleasant Hills planning commission.

"The neighbors are very concerned because they feel it will lower their property values because there are homeless people that would be brought to our borough," Mr. Kueser said.

The planning commission is expected to make its recommendation after a hearing at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The hearing is a continuation of one that started Aug. 22, when neighbors complained about the possible devaluation of their homes.

Also at the Aug. 22 meeting, a school principal questioned whether the district would be able to check the disciplinary backgrounds of the children, as they are homeless.

In an interview last week, Terry Kinavey, assistant to the superintendent of the West Jefferson Hills School District, said the district recognized its res-ponsibility to accept homeless pupils, but that it hoped it could work with the network to get advance notice of how many pupils and when they would arrive in the district.

That will allow district officials to plan for them and to apply for federal funds, Mrs. Kinavey said.

The planning commission recommendation will go to the borough council, which will decide on the exemption needed for the zoning change.

"Our desire and interest is to do things that will be enhancing. We are not trying to slip something through in the community that will be risky or an unsafe kind of thing," said the Rev. Paul Thwaite, associate pastor of Pleasant Hills Community Presbyterian Church.

Mr. Thwaite and Mrs. Donnan will use the Tuesday meeting to try to convince neighbors and school officials that the day center won't create problems for the community.

Mr. Thwaite said he believed the church should receive the exemption since the house's one-third acre parcel is connected to the rest of the church's property, which is several acres.

Mr. Thwaite and Mrs. Donnan pointed out that IHN is set apart from other agencies that help the homeless because it keeps entire families together. Most shelters operate for men only or for women and children only.

"IHN gives families the opportunity to go through homelessness without being split up," Mr. Thwaite said.

The Interfaith Hospitality Network is a national organization with 130 individual networks across the country, Mrs. Donnan said. The one operating in Washington County was the 14th to organize nationally.

In Washington County, the family day center operates out of a home next to the campus of Washington and Jefferson College.

Without a similar day center, there can be no program in southern Allegheny County, Mrs. Donnan said.

"We have been trying to find a family center for a couple of years. We have received grant money and we are ready to go."

Mrs. Donnan said the network had considered a building owned by a Baptist church in Crafton, but that it was too far from the churches that are willing to shelter the families. The churches provide supper, night lodging and breakfast each day, along with transportation back to the day center.

Mrs. Donnan said the network already has churches in southern Allegheny County that house homeless families, including Southminster Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon and John McMillan Presbyterian and Hamilton Presbyterian churches in Bethel Park. Churches in Peters help with the effort as well, she said.

"One of the reasons we want a program in the South Hills is so churches don't have to travel too far," she said.

Mrs. Donnan said most of the children in the program have been under age 5, so the number of children placed in the West Jefferson Hills schools is expected to be small. She said the network checks the backgrounds of families.

"We do police checks and we can do drug and alcohol checks. We would find out about criminal problems and we would not let them into the program," she said.

IHN limits the number of people it will help in a network to 14, or about four families, Mrs. Donnan said. Families stay with the network for periods ranging from one week to several months. Annually, the network in Washington County serves 25 to 30 families. Their cases are reviewed every 30 days, and the families have to work toward getting their own residence, Mrs. Donnan said.

"Most of them want to stay as short a time as possible," she said.