Setback Paved Course for Valley’s Homeless Advocate

Had John K. Horn’s car not been stolen eight years ago, he might never have become an advocate for the homeless.

“I look at it as kind of fate,” said Horn, chairman of the San Fernando Valley Homeless Coalition, composed of about 50 agencies and individuals who aid the homeless. “I had no interest in working with the homeless.”

Horn was a political-science student at Cal State Northridge and about to start an internship at the Ventura County Courthouse when he found himself without a car.

Consequently, looking for a voluntary assignment that would be easier to get to, he took a professor’s suggestion and contacted the L.A. Family Housing Corp., a nonprofit agency in North Hollywood that offers emergency shelters and low-income housing to the homeless.

Horn interned there for six months, and has been helping the homeless ever since.

Today, he is a project coordinator with L.A. Family Housing, running its homeless service center from a small Pacoima office and operating its Homeless Service Center Mobile Unit, a converted motor home that offers free counseling and health care.

For the second consecutive year, Horn has helped organize a service that will memorialize the Valley’s homeless people who died during the past year. During today’s 4 p.m. service, the names of about 20 people will be read and candles will be lighted in their memory at the Sepulveda United Methodist Church in North Hills.

Similar memorials will be held around the country to mark National Homeless Memorial Day, Horn said.

About 80 homeless people will be bused to and from the ceremony, Horn said, and up to 100 more homeless are expected. Those attending will also receive holiday meals, hygiene kits and socks. The service, which will include hymns and music, is open to the public, Horn said.

Horn said he decided to organize the service after people asked him what was being done for the homeless and not just those agencies that service them.

“It seems nobody in the Valley knew that homeless people were dying,” said Horn, 31. “Life is too important to let somebody slip by without remembering they lived and walked on this Earth.”

Horn said he wasn’t sure how the homeless attendees would react to the memorial last year. But he said most found meaning and closure in the service. They also enjoyed the holiday music.

“One guy who lost an eye, without much going for him, was out there showing everyone how to dance,” Horn recalled.

Horn is credited with strengthening cooperation among Valley homeless coalition agencies since becoming chairman in 1994.

“It’s his dedication and devotion that has held this together,” said Dennis O’Sullivan, director at People in Progress Inc., a Sun Valley-based residential facility that helps homeless men who have alcohol and drug problems. “He truly cares.”

Beginning in January, the L.A. Family Housing shelter in North Hollywood will provide an array of free services--medical help, counseling, job referrals, veterans’ benefits, alcohol and drug rehabilitation--at one place. Various agencies will be at the shelter offering their services three times a week for at least two months, said Horn, a Granada Hills resident.

It is the Valley’s first one-stop homeless access center.

“If it wasn’t for John we wouldn’t be where we are right now. He is helping homeless services advance in a way they have not been able to in the past,” said Cheryl Chimarusti, project coordinator with Connections, a county Department of Mental Health Services program that helps the homeless mentally ill. “He can help homeless people more because he has formed relationships with other agencies.”

Horn said that years ago he thought homeless people should just get jobs, but that working with them has changed his attitudes.

“Hey, let me help you rather than just preach,” Horn recalled himself thinking. “It’s really easy to cut down people you know nothing about. People are homeless for a variety of reasons.”

Although he is often low key, Horn will speak his mind strongly when it comes to homeless people--even if it means challenging the mayor.

At a June meeting of the city’s Targeted Neighborhood Initiative in Van Nuys, Horn objected to a suggestion by Mayor Richard J. Riordan that people living on Los Angeles streets chose to do so because there were enough shelters downtown for all the city’s homeless.

Horn responded by saying there are 40,000 homeless people on streets countywide on any given night, and that they should receive services wherever they are.

“We have a homeless population here because they grew up in Pacoima,” he said in an interview. “They still know certain people, they know where all the stores are and where the good hangouts are--they will go to other parts of the Valley that are 20 minutes away, but not 40 minutes away to downtown L.A.”

O’Sullivan, who was at the meeting, was not surprised at Horn’s outburst.

“He gets angry at the politicians and powers that fund these programs and who have never spent a night in a shelter, who don’t understand the desperation [homeless people] feel on a daily basis,” he said.

“I can jump up sometimes and get pretty mad,” Horn said.

At the L.A. Family Housing shelter, residents had tales of how Horn came through when they most needed help.

Kenneth Greenwood, 37, of Pacoima said Horn has helped him get bus tokens, clothes, job referrals and a place to stay.

“He’s very fair,” Greenwood said. “If he can help you in any way, he will.”

Valerie Mierow said Horn provided her with a motel voucher when she found herself homeless a year ago. The Burbank woman said Horn also sent bags of clothes and food to her and her 10-year-old son.

“Because of him I have a roof over my head; I have food,” said Mierow, 34. “When I get myself together I’m going to buy him something. He’s very special.”