If the former Sisters of Mercy convent is converted to a place where homeless people stay to find more permanent housing, its tenants will have to pass rigorous criminal background checks, drug screenings and have income, the concept’s planners said Monday.

The arrangement — dependent on a zoning change to be discussed at City Hall tonight — builds in safeguards for the neighborhood behind the old convent and former ParkView Regional Medical Center at McAuley Drive and Grove Street, said Tina Hayward, executive director of Mountain of Faith Ministries.

“We want them to help themselves, not the program to continue to help them,” Hayward said during 40 minutes of electronic slides and questions posed by some of the 15 people who gathered at Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library to talk about the plan.

The Vicksburg Board of Zoning Appeals meets tonight at 5 in the boardroom inside City Hall annex to consider the nonprofit group’s request to change how the former hospital complex is zoned so the facility may operate there. Currently, structures formerly home to the hospital, Marian Hill chemical dependency center and the Sisters of Mercy convent are zoned CBR-4, for commercial, business and multifamily residential buildings.

If built, such a center would assist up to 24 people in finding permanent housing through a two-year program of life skills and financial counseling. Planners also will scrutinize potential tenants’ incomes. Hayward said they expect people in the program to be able to pay at least $300 monthly for permanent housing. Child care could take place on site or through other day cares as is done at Women’s Restoration Shelter in south Vicksburg, which the group manages.

Residents of Wildwood subdivision behind the old hospital continued to oppose the plan, primarily on economic and quality-of-life fronts.

“We want someone to take over the building, but we don’t want it like that,” said Ernest Galloway, an 11-year resident of the neighborhood who said property values would decrease if the facility is able to operate.

David Gibson of the area’s homeowners’ association estimated property values would drop up to $30,000. Shirley Waring, who sits on the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau board, questioned Gibson’s figures based on her status as a licensed real estate broker. Waring said she was asked to speak based on past visits and support for the group’s mission at the south Vicksburg facility.

The ParkView campus is on Grove Street at McAuley Drive. Access to the old convent and the former Marian Hill chemical dependency center is from McAuley, which also is the main entrance to Wildwood, which encompasses about 100 homes.

ParkView closed in 2002 when River Region’s main campus on U.S. 61 North opened.