Homelessness in the Valley / Surviving Day by Day : Nowhere to Live--and Yet at Home : Profile: Most local street dwellers are our ex-neighbors, former co-workers, old schoolmates. Some have fallen victim to the economy, abuse, even the earthquake.

Roaming the streets of Van Nuys with her shopping cart at night, Carolyn Harr sometimes walks by her alma mater, Birmingham High School, where she was a student more than two decades ago.

Like many of the San Fernando Valley’s homeless, Harr grew up here. But she says her native soil doesn’t always feel like home.

The Valley has few services to offer her, and she and the growing number of people who spend their days and nights encamped in cars, back yards, parks and garages are often ignored by their former neighbors and schoolmates.

“I am a mule skin of a woman,” said 47-year-old Harr, her tanned skin tough from seven years on the Valley’s streets. “It hurts very much. I am tired.”

Harr, who said she fled an abusive husband in Phoenix to return to the familiar Valley, often sleeps in Louise Park in Reseda during the day because she is afraid she will be attacked if she closes her eyes at night.

Unlike in Downtown’s Skid Row or parts of South-Central Los Angeles where the homeless crowd sidewalks and are highly visible, the 6,000 to 10,000 homeless living in the sprawling San Fernando Valley are often hidden. Some panhandle in parking lots or next to freeway on-ramps, but many others accept food from churches or food banks and otherwise remain out of sight.

Studies show that most of the Valley’s homeless are former residents of its homes, students of its schools and employees of its businesses.

“They are members of the Valley community,” said Jeff Farber of the Los Angeles Family Housing Corp., which runs the Trudy and Norman Louis Valley Shelter in North Hollywood. “They are not running away to the Valley, they are here.”

The face of the Valley’s homeless mirrors its overall population. There are more whites and Latinos and fewer African Americans here than on Skid Row or in South-Central.

Nationwide, studies have shown that about half of the homeless are victims of economic circumstances such as the loss of a job, cuts in public assistance or separation from a spouse who was paying the rent or mortgage. About one-third to one-half of the nation’s homeless are mentally ill or substance abusers. Another third are veterans. But all of the categories can overlap and often do.

Shelter providers say a rising number of the Valley’s homeless are families with young children, many of whom are victims of the recession, cuts in public assistance, domestic abuse, even the earthquake.

There are between 43,000 and 77,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County, according to Shelter Partnership, a Los Angeles nonprofit organization that tracks the homeless. And the numbers are growing--by 13% last year and at least that much this year. The partnership estimates the Valley’s homeless population is growing at the same rate.

“For every family I see, there are two I can’t,” said Farber of the Valley Shelter. “The way this community is set up geographically, you don’t see them. But they are all over the place.”

Most of the service organizations for the Valley’s homeless are small and operate at capacity. They also are spread out geographically, making cooperation and transportation between them difficult.

Willie, a 52-year-old unemployed machinist and construction worker from Sylmar, who asked that his full name not be used for fear someone he knows would recognize him, has lived in his truck for less than two months.

Yet, he has already memorized the hopscotch schedule of free meals and showers scattered across the Valley: Monday breakfast at the United Methodist Church of Sepulveda in North Hills; Tuesday sandwiches at St. Jane Frances Church in North Hollywood; Wednesday dinner at The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, and so on. “It’s tough,” Willie said, shaking his head.

Behind the mushrooming homeless population is a growing number of residents who are, themselves, dangerously close to being on the streets. The number of Valley residents on welfare more than doubled between January, 1991, and July, 1993, to 174,000, a rate twice that of some neighborhoods in South-Central Los Angeles. The Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 Valley jobs were lost in the past decade. And in parts of the northeast Valley, the poverty rate hovers between 25% and 40%.

The 1990 census shows that parts of the Valley, including Arleta and Pacoima, have some of the highest rates of residential overcrowding in Los Angeles County. Experts say people who make a tightly cramped living arrangement with relatives or acquaintances are just one step away from the streets.

“They can be kicked out in 10 minutes instead of 30 days,” said the Rev. Gene Boutilier, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a new government agency that coordinates the city and county homeless services.

Adding to the Valley’s housing shortage was the loss of more than 20,000 units due to the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, according to the Los Angeles Housing Department. Now, thousands of people are using 18-month rental vouchers in apartments they cannot afford without the assistance.

“The clock’s ticking,” Boutilier said. “We do not have and are not going to have enough affordable housing for people who need it.”

Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness, agreed.

“We’re sitting on an economic earthquake in the Valley,” he said. “I have yet to see a plan to deal with what’s going to happen.”

Under the Clinton Administration’s pledge to reduce homelessness by a third nationwide before the end of its first term, Los Angeles is expected to receive about $20 million from a Department of Housing and Urban Development pilot project over three years.

Since the first homeless allocation, the Administration is seeking an unprecedented $1.7 billion for the nation’s homeless.

Last year, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon convinced the city to include Pacoima in the original application, which concentrated on South-Central Los Angeles, East Los Angeles and Downtown. Mayor Richard Riordan’s office is in the final stages of developing a plan for the funds, which will probably go toward drop-in centers, emergency shelters and permanent housing.

But no one expects the Valley’s fraction--about $350,000--to end its homelessness.

Without communitywide recognition of the link between homelessness and other social problems, some advocates say, the problem will get steadily worse.

Sitting on a wool blanket in a Van Nuys park, a pair of socks drying beside her in the scorching sun, Carolyn Harr listed a few regrets: She wished she had finished high school, learned to type and raised her four children, two of whom are now in foster homes. If she had been taken out of an abusive household as a child, she said, she might have escaped the later alcoholism and abusive relationships that sentenced her to life on the streets.

She said she welcomes the idea of having a place to live and someone to take care of her. But she doesn’t let the thought linger.

“It’s too late for me,” Harr said, shaking her head. “I’m past the age of wanting a home and beautiful geraniums.”

* RELATED STORIES: B2-3