The Street Fighter : Juannie Nunn has a life-saving message for homeless kids: clean needles and safe sex. She’s knows. She’s been there.

A few years ago, Juannie Nunn was just like a lot of other homeless teen-agers living around Hollywood and Sunset.

She injected drugs. She had unsafe sex. She didn’t care whether she lived or died.

Most nights, she’s back there--on the streets, on the prowl.

But now, she walks Hollywood Boulevard with a noteworthy purpose. As part of a federally funded study, Nunn is one of seven former street kids who have been hired and trained as outreach workers. Their job is to educate homeless teen-agers about the danger of HIV infection, which is already so prevalent that officials fear this group--an estimated 1 to 2 million in the United States--may constitute the next wave of the epidemic.

Getting information to the street has proven so difficult that the federal government last year endorsed the innovative approach of using high-risk kids to deliver life-saving messages about clean needles and safe sex.

So Nunn, 19, is on Hollywood Boulevard this cool winter evening as the coordinator of the youth outreach program of the Los Angeles Free Clinic. She leads a diverse group designed to relate to as many homeless and runaway kids as possible.

“We’re familiar faces,” Nunn says. “Between all seven of us, we know everyone on the street.”

And the group blends in easily with the surroundings. Nunn wears a baseball-style cap over her shaved head, and silver hoops in her nose and ears. She dresses in dark, baggy clothes, as does Walter (Seven) Jenkins, a tall, somber man who wears dreadlocks, and Albert Aldrete, an 1adult outreach worker at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. Each pair of youth outreach workers is accompanied by an adult worker.

On this night, Hollywood Boulevard is a slightly less desolate place than usual. Christmas decorations adorn the shops. And there are far fewer homeless people roaming about. At Christmastime, Nunn says, many kids in search of comfort go home or spend a few days with friends or relatives.

But the solace is often temporary.

“We all know what will happen,” she says, sighing. “By early January, they will all be back.”

Nunn, Jenkins and Aldrete walk briskly, canvas satchels tossed over their shoulders. They meet up with a group of guys sitting on a bus bench and hand out condoms. The outreach workers carry cards and brochures about HIV infection and lists of phone numbers for shelters, food, crisis counseling and free, confidential HIV testing. They also provide alcohol and swabs to clean the needles, cookies donated by the McDonald’s at Childrens Hospital and, when available, free samples of hygiene products.

“It makes our approach a little easier,” Aldrete says.

They stop before a teen-ager with stringy hair and cutoff jeans, sitting on the steps of a darkened building. He says he recently arrived from Indiana. He says he’s looking for drugs. But he also asks about a place to sleep. Aldrete and Nunn refer him to a shelter and give him some cookies.

They are not yet out of earshot when the youth asks the next group of passers-by for drugs.

The three turn into an alley, where the ugly backs of brick buildings reveal crumbled concrete driveways, rusting fire escapes and the loading docks where homeless kids often sleep. The group is dejected that no one is there at the moment. It’s usually a good place to find people.

They move on, stopping to say hello or to hug old friends--friends who are now their “clients.”

By 8:30, they come in. It’s too dangerous to stay out any longer. And by that time, people are too high to listen.

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It’s impossible to know how many youths may be infected with HIV because few have regular contact with medical clinics. But officials estimate that 10% to 20% of street youths in New York City are infected; earlier this year, one Los Angeles shelter gave HIV tests to 12 homeless youths--six came back positive.

It is this kind of random sample that knocks the wind out of public health officials.

“That was so alarming to hear,” says Stephen Knight, a program administrator at Los Angeles Free Clinic who supervises the youth outreach workers. “That was just unheard of. HIV is running rampant through the streets and squats and alleys.”

These teen-agers are time bombs, health experts say. Their HIV symptoms may remain hidden for years, and without getting tested, they may transmit the infection to many partners. Young women living on the streets also have a high rate of pregnancy, thus risking the transmission of HIV to their babies.

Homeless youths are at high risk for HIV for many reasons: intravenous drug use; sex with multiple partners, including IV drug users; drug and alcohol abuse, which makes it less likely that condoms will be used, and a high rate of sexually transmitted diseases, which increase the chance of HIV transmission through genital sores.

In a recent study, UCLA researchers interviewed homeless youngsters ages 13 to 17 in Hollywood and found a desperate picture of kids at high risk and powerless to help themselves.

Nearly all of the 93 teen-agers studied were sexually active, said Dr. Milton Greenblatt, of the UCLA Medical Center, the study’s author. About one-third had more than 10 partners in a previous year, and 18% had had sex with an IV drug user. One-third reported trading sex for drugs, money or food. And although most had used some form of birth control in the past, about half had not used a condom in their most recent sexual encounters.

Although most know that getting AIDS is a risk they face, few are willing to listen to adults recommending behavior changes.

“We have to send in somebody who looks like them, talks like them and knows what life is like for them,” says Mary Rainwater, executive director of the Los Angeles Free Clinic.

“You can’t just hand out information or a condom,” Knight adds. “I’ve seen the outreach kids get through to these kids and bring them into the clinic. That would never have happened if it had been an adult outreach worker.”

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Teen-age outreach workers such as Juannie (pronounced Johnnie) Nunn have resolved their problems enough to be able to help their peers--while not being so far removed from the streets that they have forgotten what life is like there.

Since age 7, Nunn has been living at various group homes, foster homes or on the streets. Eventually, she says she began using drugs. There were stays in institutions and jails for drug-related or petty crimes. But there was something special about Nunn; others saw it before she did.

“People on the streets would tell me, ‘You are the one who is going to make it. You’re the one who is going to get out of here and help the rest of us,’ ” Nunn recalls. “I finally started listening to that and it got me thinking: If they see this, why am I not seeing this in myself? I started to gain self-confidence.”

The journey out of the hole was not an easy one, even for someone as intelligent and gifted as Nunn.

Three years ago, Knight hired Nunn in a different peer outreach program. At the time, he says, Nunn had some desire to straighten out her life. But she was also “guarded, hard-core street, low self-esteem,” he says.

He eventually had to kick her out of the program.

“I couldn’t get her to trust anyone, and she wasn’t ready to do that,” Knight says. “But I knew she had potential. I knew one day she could do a lot.”

Last summer, when Knight began accepting applications from homeless youths for the HIV outreach program, Nunn was among the 30 who applied for the job.

This time, she was ready.

“It was amazing to see that she had changed,” Knight says. “She was mature enough to take this on.”

Nunn became the full-time, paid coordinator of the group. She moved into an apartment with friends. And, this year, bought her own Christmas tree.

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Before they hit the streets, the teen outreach group--which is part of the interagency High Risk Youth Program in Los Angeles--was given thorough training in HIV information. They learned how to protect themselves on the street and how to do crisis intervention.

And they started their own weekly support group to keep each other strong.

The work can be very tough.

When Nunn first returned to the street in her new role, the envy was palpable among the people who knew her back when.

“In the beginning, there was total jealousy,” Nunn says. “But eventually, people got to know that I am not out there to be an authority. I am out there to lend a hand.”

Among youths who didn’t know her, there was the expected animosity.

“It took a lot at first to get kids to open up to me,” she says. “I would approach them and they were totally hostile. They would be up in my face and say, ‘I don’t need your condoms.’ ”

The hostile ones seemed surprised when Nunn showed up again and again--always greeting them. Never pushing.

Nunn knows how hard it is to trust someone.

“When I was on the streets, I stayed away from the outreach workers. I avoided them. So I know what I’m up against now.”

But the program appears to be working. One night, Nunn says, she and the other workers approached seven young IV drug users.

“They were real hesitant at first,” she recalls. “We started telling them how to clean (their needles). They didn’t know how to do it, so we showed them. They said, cool, and that they were going to start doing it.”

There is a lot of denial on the streets about HIV, Nunn says.

“A lot of them think they are invincible,” she says. “Or they think it’s a gay disease or it’s only something that happens to the druggies.”

Knight is confident that the outreach workers are succeeding because none of the seven has become discouraged and quit.

“I have a good feeling about it,” he says. “For us to hire seven kids back in August and have all of them six months later is great, because these kids are high-risk themselves. They have had a lot of personal problems. But these kids have really dedicated themselves and go around a lot of obstacles. And they are still here every day.”