John Haines was put in the awkward position yesterday of turning away deposits in his bank.

When more than 50 people turned up at a gathering to help save Dwelling House Savings & Loan in the Hill District, the president had to tell the crowd that too much money deposited in traditional accounts would just cause more trouble for the faltering institution.

Dwelling House, Pittsburgh's oldest and most prominent black financial institution, is under a June 30 deadline set by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision to increase its capital reserves or face being sold or shut down. Officials have said about $2 million in reserve funds were electronically stolen.

Bank officials have said they've come up with about $1 million needed for recapitalization, and community supporters organized yesterday's gathering at the Hill House to try to help the bank in its efforts to raise another $1 million or so.

Those who showed up yesterday demonstrated the type of loyalty that few banks seem likely to inspire. Myra Hill still remembered how other banks wouldn't consider her mortgage application in 1974 when she was an African-American single mother looking for a loan.

But Robert R. Lavelle, the then-CEO of Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association, came through for her and she moved in to a Hill District home on Dec. 14 of that year. "Mr. Lavelle gave me a mortgage when no one else would," she said.

Jackie Dixon, of Fox Chapel, said she has planned a party for 10 people who would deposit $1,000 and she already has RSVPs from five.

Tim Stevens, chairman of the Black Political Empowerment Project, organized the gathering so members of the community could do something to continue the work that Mr. Lavelle started in 1957 when he revived the bank that was then failing.

Mr. Stevens pulled a bank envelope from National City from the inner breast pocket of his suit coat and said he came to the meeting planning to go deposit the money at Dwelling House.

But if everyone in the Hill District deposits more money, and foundations, companies and local governments follow suit, it just might cause a reverse run on the bank, imperiling it as much as the theft of the bank's capital that has it struggling for life now.

Officials have said the problem started when someone tapped into the bank's account through automated clearing house transactions.

The $1.8 million that was stolen, Mr. Haines explained, came from the bank's capital. Dwelling House, which has total assets of $13.4 million, is now undercapitalized.

Capital, he explained, is the money over and above the insured deposits. If the money can be returned, the bank will be all right.

If the money is not returned, Dwelling House needs to replace the capital and that needs to be about 4 percent of its insured deposits.

The catch there is that if suddenly there is a huge rush of money into the bank, it will make it more difficult to recapitalize because the amount the bank would need would go up.

Instead, Mr. Haines was looking for "special" deposits of amounts that would not be insured or able to be withdrawn, but which could one day in the future draw interest when the bank is profitable. Those "special" deposits would be at risk if the bank ever becomes insolvent because they would not be insured.

He said he did not know if those deposits would ever be returned but he did say that if people pledge to make such deposits, he would accept none of them until the full amount needed by the bank is covered.

"Until we get it all, we will take none," he said. That's meant to reduce the immediate risk for those depositors.

Mr. Haines also distributed pledge sheets for customers willing to promise they would make regular deposits -- those that are federally insured -- when the bank is solvent. That, he said, would show regulators that when the bank is recapitalized, it will have plenty of community support.

Mr. Haines said he has had inquiries from depositors willing to put in as much as $250,000.

He said he did not want to turn away deposits but that large amounts would throw off the balance the bank needs to achieve to survive.

Mr. Stevens, the organizer, left the meeting asking people to sign pledges to support the bank either with returnable deposits or by adding their money to the bank's capital.

"It's time now to say 'yes' to the legacy of Robert R. Lavelle," he said.