A nonprofit agency that provides temporary housing for homeless women and their children now must find temporary housing of its own.

The Benedictine Sisters of Pittsburgh are negotiating the sale of their 10-acre campus on Perrysville Avenue in Ross. If that sale goes through as expected, HEARTH and four other social service agencies will have to find new quarters. They are Easter Seals Adult Day Care, Perry-Ross Meals on Wheels, Ross-Mercy Mental Retardation Services and the Benedictine Senior Center, which is co-sponsored with the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging.

HEARTH, which stands for Homelessness Ends with Advocacy, Resources Training and Housing, has its offices and 15 apartments in the former St. Benedict Academy building. The building now is known as Benedictine Place.

HEARTH provides housing for up to two years for women with children who are at risk of becoming or who are homeless. In return they are required to enroll in a job-training program or college. They also receive assistance in areas such as budgeting, effective parenting and mental health counseling.

While no date has been set for the sale closing, HEARTH has been given a June deadline to find new quarters.

Sister Benita DeMatteis, the prioress, or head, of the local Benedictine order, said their wooded campus had become too large and too expensive to maintain for the declining number of nuns who reside there.

The four-story monastery, which is next to the former school, was built to house 200 nuns, she said. Her order now has 54 older and retired sisters. The order has been in Allegheny County for 140 years and in Ross since 1926. No decision has been made on where the order will relocate, Sister Benita said.

The nuns have an agreement to sell their property and buildings to Pressley Ridge, a McCandless-based non-profit agency that works with children with emotional and developmental problems.

Jerry Drozynski, the president of HEARTH's board, said the nonprofit expects to have to move twice while it undertakes a capital campaign to raise funds for a new home.

The agency's immediate need is for a building, or several buildings on one property, large enough to provide space for 15 two- and three-bedroom apartments, counseling areas and offices. That space would be occupied for up to 18 months while HEARTH seeks to locate, then renovate or build a permanent home.

Both locations would have to be close to public transportation, he said.

More information on HEARTH is available at 412-939-2302 or on its web site, www.hearth-bp.org