San Francisco Chronicle (SF) - FRIDAY July 5, 1991
Dan Levy, Chronicle Staff Writer

They are all prostitutes in their teens and early 20s and hustling on Polk Street, where potential customers were already nodding in their direction early on a recent evening.

Soon they will have a lot more company. During the summer the young homeless and runaway population in the city will swell, public officials and social workers say, as transient youths from throughout California and the nation make their way to San Francisco.

Here they expect to find a tolerant city government known for a wide range of social services, a laid-back lifestyle and a gay haven.

Precise numbers on such a transient population are hard to collect, but the latest statistics from the state, a 1987-89 survey by the Office of Criminal Justice Planning, documented 8,798 homeless youths in San Francisco.

"Homelessness in general has increased over the last 10 years. Anyone who lives in an urban area can see that," said Marilyn Ericksen, executive director of the 24- hour California Youth Crisis Line. The volume of calls received in 1991 is already double that of 1990, she said.

"The phones are ringing off the hook," Ericksen said. "It could be because of better outreach, or it could be because there are more kids on the streets."

Experts warn that the outlook on the streets for neglected and abused youths is unusually bleak this summer. Job prospects are lower than ever, school systems have cut services and the AIDS virus is infecting rising numbers of young males.

"We are seeing a lot more despair and anger," said Diane Flannery, executive director of the Larkin Street Youth Center, around the corner from the action on Polk Street. "For a lot of reasons, teenagers are really angry right now."

SUMMER INFLUX

By April, the center had helped 30 more youths in 1991 than during all last year. With school out, Flannery, like youth services directors all over the city, is bracing for the summer surge.

"They'll come here from the Midwest, New York, maybe stop in Las Vegas," said Geneva Fernandez, director of youth programs at Hospitality House on Leavenworth Street. "Survival on the street is better when it's warm."

They come from as far away as Eastern Europe, said Tom Lindsay, a Larkin Street staff member who walks the streets dispensing bubble gum, condoms and bleach for intravenous drug users.

"We saw a 17-year-old boy from Poland and a 14-year-old girl from Bulgaria last week," he said, dressed for his rounds in a bright red jacket and a string of condoms tied into a crown.

At Larkin Street, drop-in clients doubled during the winter, flooding its expanded medical clinic and counseling center.

INCREASE IN HIV

But the more worrisome development, Flannery said, is the increase in the numbers of teenagers infected with HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

On Polk Street, a hustler from Nashville named "Bill" waves a condom and says, "This is rule No. 1." Statistics are not as encouraging. A yearlong Department of Public Health survey of homeless youths reported three weeks ago that 13.4 percent of males tested positive for HIV.

"These figures are wildly high. We should all be worried," said Dr. Janet Shalwitz, the department's director of special programs for youths. The survey, which sampled 119 men and 191 women at the Larkin Street and Huckleberry House youth centers, amplifies a San Francisco AIDS Office report that risky sexual behavior by young men is continuing despite widespread safe-sex education.

CAPTION: PHOTO

Tom Lindsay (left) of the Larkin Street Youth Center stopped on Polk Street to talk to a teenager he has counseled/BY BRANT WARD/THE CHRONICLE

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