In the late 1980s, a crisis of family homelessness was being discovered. And what made it worse? Most traditional shelters separated genders - some for women and little children, others for men and older boys - and families were split apart. In 1993, a pioneering woman came to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Carmel, IN on a Wednesday evening. Her name was Karen Olson. She had started the first Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN) in Summit, New Jersey a few years prior.

​

Only a dozen people attended her talk that evening. But one man--a member of Carmel United Methodist Church--heard her message with his heart, and saw possibility. Dr. Dean Lindsey had just retired from Elanco, and was discerning where to dedicate himself next.  He spoke with Karen immediately after, and regularly over the next few months. He researched the local need; he found it to be vast. He formed an interfaith outreach group, with a key member named Pastor Brian Byrne from St. Peter's United Church of Christ. They together recruited other congregations. The Northside Indianapolis Interfaith Hospitality Network was born (later renamed omitting the word Northside).