It's not moving from Rosemary Street to Homestead Road. It's closing, and a new facility will take shape near Homestead Park.

"This isn't moving the operations of the shelter to Homestead," Kleinschmidt said.

Kleinschmidt responded to a presentation by Chris Moran, Inter-Faith Council for Social Services director, at Friday's meeting of the Community Leadership Collaboration, which brings together business, university, civic and political leaders.

Moran distinguished between the current IFC Community House, which provides food and shelter, and the future Community House, which will also help homeless men develop the skills they need to hold permanent jobs and housing.

"We're not interested in just warehousing people," Moran said after the meeting.

The current shelter has 30 beds, and Moran said on the coldest nights this winter, it has housed an additional 53 men on the floors. The future shelter will have 52 beds and room for as many as 70 men needing emergency shelter when temperatures drop below 40 degrees or climb above 100.

"I suppose I could put 50, 60, 70 people on the floor, but that's not my intention," Moran said. "We'll have the ability to bring people in when they're in harm's way."

Moran hopes the new facility will provide emergency shelter only until the community creates another shelter for that purpose. But there are no such plans now.

The IFC will hold community meetings in the coming weeks and expects to file a permit application with the town later this spring.

"They're not negotiating sessions," Moran said. "They're information sessions. We are not going to debate about alternate locations because we've been looking for locations for 11 years, and the board is firm."

Neighbors have criticized the IFC for not keeping the public informed as it searched for and reviewed potential shelter sites.

"I don't think that happens to any other developer in the community," Moran said.

Last year, UNC announced it would provide the town with land for the shelter near Homestead Park, free of charge. Since the 1980s, the IFC has used the town's old municipal building on Rosemary Street for free.

"This gift that the university is giving us could never be replicated," Moran said. "Without the town, without the university, we could never do this."

Aaron Nelson, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce which convenes the CLC, agreed the project needs to move forward.

"If we believe that this should happen, then we've got to put a shoulder to the wheel on it," he said.

Some Homestead Park neighbors say they already endure the presence of social-service facilities like the Southern Human Services Center, the HomeStart women's shelter, Freedom House detox clinic and public-housing complexes.

Nelson said neighbors' fears of increased crime outpace the actual risk.

"They think they're in danger, but, really, they're afraid," he said. "Sometimes there's a public interest that trumps the special interest of the people most proximate."