CHAPEL HILL - Inter-Faith Council director Chris Moran said the agency may delay its development permit application amid neighbors' opposition to a new men's homeless shelter on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at Homestead Road.

Despite support from United Church of Chapel Hill, which is adjacent to the site, Moran faced a throng of red-clad protesters as the Town Council reviewed IFC's concept plan for a 50-bed shelter last week. These neighbors anticipated homeless men loitering, panhandling or causing other mischief around their homes, schools and Homestead Park -- basically, the same complaint some downtown merchants and visitors have expressed about the street people downtown.

The council challenged IFC to address these concerns and explain how the agency chose the Homestead site. For example, IFC is seeking detailed crime data from the police department for its Rosemary Street shelter.

That sort of research could disrupt IFC's initial plan to gain a permit about a year from now and open the doors in January 2012.

"We will probably delay the special-use-permit process," said Moran. "It would be disrespectful for us to file for an SUP permit if these questions haven't been answered."

In an interview later in the week, Moran suggested the shelter is the victim of misperceptions. Its clients are not the same people who loiter and panhandle on Franklin Street, he said. And the Homestead site did not just come out of thin air; the IFC has considered more than a dozen different sites after moving "temporarily" into the Old Municipal Building at Rosemary and Columbia streets 24 years ago.

"Wherever we move, panhandling and loitering will continue downtown," said Moran. "The two have no relationship. The public has to understand that."

Moran said street people may follow the IFC's community kitchen to Carrboro if it moves as planned, but they will remain likely to do most of their panhandling on Franklin Street where UNC students tend to give.

Moran said the shelter's program is designed for people re-learning how to hold down jobs and pay for their own housing.

That program will become even more structured once it moves to a new facility with more room for men to fix their own meals, train for jobs, learn how to budget their money, receive medical care and otherwise prepare for life outside the shelter, just as homeless women do at Project HomeStart on the south side of Homestead Road. These men will work their way from a bunk room with strict rules to earn successively more privacy, freedom and responsibility until they're ready to move out on their own, Moran said.

"They don't want to be bothered by people who may want to come inside one of our facilities for a night or two," Moran said. "They don't want to be associated with those folks." Moran said the women and children who live at the existing HomeStart facility across the road haven't caused any trouble at Homestead Park, and neither will the men. He said the homeless aren't any more likely to abuse drugs, suffer mental illness or perpetrate crime than the general population.

Moran said the HomeStart structure doesn't provide much time for clients to loiter in the neighborhood.

"They're working, they're picking up their kids from child care every night," he said. "People have to be in at a certain time, they've got to go to bed at a certain time."

Responding to concerns about men who are turned away from the new shelter, Moran said the HomeStart model is built on long-term relationships.

"It's not like people are coming over and checking and saying, 'Do you have a bed tonight?'" he said. "It's different downtown because we're there and people who are homeless and nearby are going to stop in."

Moran acknowledged that HomeStart is not an emergency shelter and can't help every homeless person in Chapel Hill. Being outside of downtown will enhance the HomeStart model, but IFC has struggled to find a new location because of high land costs, zoning restrictions or lack of public utilities and bus service.

"We've looked at 14, 15, 17 different locations over the years," Moran said. Last year UNC offered 1.6 acres out of 13 it was buying near Homestead Park, meeting all IFC's criteria.

"The university is making this extraordinary gift, which I don't think we can ever get again," Moran said.