She was 12 the first time she ran away, trading a troubled home life for life on the streets.

In the years that followed, Jaclyn Mellon would live an uncertain — and sometimes nomadic — life fueled by drugs, alcohol and desperation. She would couch-surf, sleep beneath bridges and in abandoned buildings, and shoot up heroin in public bathrooms.

There would be the predictable encounters with police. She would get pregnant twice, give the first baby — a son born when she was 17 — up for adoption. She would do — and deal — dope, land in jail and, eventually, end up in a treatment program.

Along the way she would meet Renton’s Elaine Simons. At 47, Simons stands just under 5-foot-1 and has long curly black hair streaked with gray.

“You can tell how stressed she is by how poufy her hair is,” Mellon says with a laugh.

What Simons lacks in stature she makes up for in determination, and given her calling — working with street kids — that’s a good thing.

Raised in Bellevue, Simons graduated from Sammamish High School, went on to Bellevue Community College, then to the Rhode Island School of Design and Columbia University’s Teachers College.

By 1995, she was a middle school art teacher in the Seattle School District. That summer, working in an alternative school program and increasingly alarmed by the number of her former students she saw living on the streets, she helped her students organize a concert at the Seattle Center.

“Fifteen hundred people showed up,” she says now.

That concert would become the seed for Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets, a not-for-profit headquartered on Capitol Hill that provides support and services to homeless youths and young adults.

“What makes us unique is that the kids help develop our strategies for helping them transition to productive lives,” she says.

Three years after the concert that started it all, Simons left the school district to become the organization’s director.

Mellon was on the streets when Simons met her.

“She’s the mother I was meant to have,” Mellon says. “She’s a mother hen. She says what she needs to say even if you don’t want to hear it. She’s totally compassionate and wants to help. But she doesn’t sugarcoat anything.”

It was through the Streets organization that Mellon got her GED, completed an internship and found referrals for other agencies that helped with housing, her pregnancies and other needs.

“If I hadn’t had that support I would have left looking for something. … They were there through both my pregnancies, through my using and getting clean and my relapses,” Mellon says.

Today, Mellon lives in Auburn with her fiance and their 14-month-old daughter, Wednesday, who was born while Mellon was finishing a six-month inpatient drug program.

A stay in a YWCA shelter in Kent followed her release, then transitional housing in Auburn. Recently, the family was approved for Section 8 housing.

“It means we won’t be in shelters any more. We’ll have a place to live,” says Mellon, now part of a “Step Beyond” group, a Streets program for older youths who live in permanent housing, but still need support.

Her fiance, who also battled drugs and did prison time, is in recovery, holding down a job and planning to attend auto body school. Mellon, still in an outpatient drug program, plans to work while he finishes, then he’ll work while she goes to auto mechanics school.

“Hopefully, one day we’ll open a shop,” she says.

Simons says people like Jaclyn Mellon “are what this agency’s about. We’re there for them when they make the decisions for whatever place in their life they’re in.”

Now going on 13 years in the field, she has no plans to quit.

“I see a lot of people working with street kids leave, retire or change fields,” she says. “But I still feel young — and so connected.”

Angelique Brooks could not remember what she wanted for herself.

But she could recall so easily the requests she made for her son. The 5-year-old boy is learning how to read, and running out of educational toys. So she asked for help from Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets (PSKS).

On Saturday, she smiled at the seven boxes by her feet.

“Those are all for my son,” she said.

For the past decade, the nonprofit group has organized holiday gift-giving events for homeless youth and people who are finding their way into housing after so many years on the street. About 100 people listed their “needs” and their “wants” this year. On Saturday, the PSKS office on Capitol Hill was crowded with those gifts, donated by corporations, congregations and ordinary citizens.

There were plenty of practical presents, from sleeping bags to sets of socks. One person asked for a month’s supply of medication. Many of the “wants” were covered as well, from fishnet stockings to art supplies to iPod Shuffles. Each person got gift certificates to Target and McDonald’s as stocking stuffers.

Brooks was first in line on Saturday, standing with a piece of roll-on luggage by her side. She had traveled more than two hours on the bus from Auburn to get there. She is living with her son in subsidized housing after several years on the street.

Her son has struggled with health problems. And Brooks said she was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

But both are doing better now, she said. She even bought him a present recently. But then, she said, that was stolen.

The pile of presents was a relief.

“He has something to open tomorrow,” said Brooks.

Months of work went into Saturday’s event, from the taking of the requests to the tagging of each person’s name on the box. And then there was the feast, organized largely by Mama Sara, a volunteer who started out as a client.

She was bent over the buffet Saturday afternoon, spreading leaves of lettuce around platters, just for the look of it. She laid out little red radishes in strategic spots.

“Nobody’s going to eat them, but they look like Christmas balls,” she said.

Mama Sara came to the group several years ago, somewhat wary. She was older than most of the clients there. She had been homeless for nearly two decades — a “textbook case,” she says, of a girl who left foster care, foundered, and slipped into drug abuse and prostitution.

But she was inspired by the feel of the place and its executive director, Elaine Simons. She began to volunteer. And that first Christmas, she got the gifts she wanted: towels and kitchen utensils. It was a celebration of her new life, in her new apartment.

“I just felt like somebody cared, like somebody was listening to me,” said Mama Sara, now 53. “Suddenly, I mattered.”

Atop a pair of old roller skates and under blinking multicolored lights, with a Black Eyed Peas’ song blasting, Jessica Anderson said thank you.

She’s thankful for her 7-year-old son and her boyfriend who skated alongside her, for being able to start college this fall, and for Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets, a group that helped her get her GED and helped get her out of homelessness.

It’s one of many thank-yous the 10-year-old nonprofit organization received last night when it hosted a free roller-skating party at Skate King in Bellevue.

The group, based on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, offers GED classes, counsels homeless youth and sponsors events like the skating party — because the kids they serve deserve a little bit of fun as well, organizers said.

“For a little while they can just forget about being homeless and not have to think about these problems,” said Elaine Simons, executive director of Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets (PSKS).

Last night’s event, co-sponsored by Skate King and several area charities, brought together about 60 homeless youths, between 8 and 24 years old, and their caseworkers. For younger children, it was a chance to develop better social skills and build self-esteem, said Joanna Ward, who works with at-risk youth.

Anderson, now 21, was homeless for four years, starting at age 11, she thinks. It’s hard to pin down the exact age she fled home — time moves differently when you’re homeless, she said.

She says that after suffering years of abuse, she left home and squatted under Interstate 5 near Roanoke Street in Seattle. A girl not much older than herself gave her clothing and showed her how to survive. Through her, Anderson was able to attend programs by PSKS and become stable enough to get her own apartment, where she lives now with her boyfriend and son.

She enrolled in the organization’s GED course and got her certificate last fall. In September, she starts classes at Shoreline Community College.

Matthew Hicks, who also got his GED with the help of PSKS, said events like last night’s helped him keep going as he tried to build his life. Through PSKS, he has found stable housing and has stayed sober.

“They give you an activity to do every single day,” said Hicks, 20. “It shows people that there is still a life out there, still a world outside of being homeless.”

Only a few years back, panhandling along Broadway on Capitol Hill for money to buy heroin was a way of life for Jaclyn Mellon, who left home at age 12. While the drugs made it easier to escape the moment, Mellon could not escape the reality of life on the street.With the help of Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets, a Seattle-based advocacy and education agency that provides resources and outreach to homeless youth and young adults, and plenty of dedication on her part, Mellon is off the streets. Now 18, she’s clean, has her GED and a place of her own to share with her constant companion, her dog Toxic.

A new exhibit tells Mellon’s story and the stories of 25 others who at one point in their lives were homeless. The more than two dozen raw and revealing testimonials are part of an arresting art installation created by New York City artists Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry.

The project, titled “Endurance,” features life-size photographs of 26 members from Peace for the Streets, along with audio interviews and a video that chronicles the “endurance” portion of the project, which had each participant standing motionless for an hour on a downtown Seattle street in memory of friends and loved ones who’ve died.

“Endurance” opens today at Seattle’s City Space gallery in the Bank of America Tower, with a meet-the-artists reception Thursday night.

Peace for the Streets members oversaw many of the early stages of the three-year project, from selecting the artists to brainstorming ideas for portraying street life accurately. The project was sponsored by the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs’ ARTS UP program, which pairs artists with local communities. Funding also came from sources including the National Endowment for the Arts, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and the Fales Foundation.

Many of the participants are in a dramatically different place in their lives today than when “Endurance” began. Many are no longer homeless, others are in school or holding down steady employment. The whereabouts of roughly a dozen of the participants are unknown (PSKS Executive Director Elaine Simons is trying to track all 26 for the exhibit’s opening) and two PSKS members involved at the beginning of “Endurance” died just as the project was taking shape. Steven “Filth” Greenberg, an audio intern on the project, died of a drug overdose, and Nicholas “Rooster” Helhowski, a former street kid-turned-homeless advocate, was fatally beaten at a North Seattle bus stop in 2002.

While there were obvious similarities between the participants, such as drug and alcohol addiction or past physical and emotional abuse, the artists let each person’s individuality emerge. The teens and young adults, many proudly displaying facial piercings and dressed in baggy, layered attire in the dead of summer, aren’t posing or glamorizing their circumstances.

There is, however, a sense of vulnerability conveyed in many of the photographs.

“There’s an incredible level of detail in terms of how they are presenting themselves, what they are wearing,” McCallum said during an interview last week at City Space.

At the heart of “Endurance” are the emotional and often revealing accounts of what life is like on the streets. The artists interviewed each person alone, some more than once, McCallum said. Each answered a slew of questions, such as why they left home, what they took with them and what it’s like to live on the streets.

“Our approach to working with people’s stories is to listen and honor what they are saying,” McCallum said.

The hope is that “Endurance” will get people to reevaluate their perceptions of homeless people.

“There are misconceptions that we are all lazy and junkies,” Jaclyn Mellon said. “People need to realize that we’re not all bad people, and that’s what this project does.”

Education is a critical component of the work that goes on at PSKS, an organization the sees about 400 homeless youth and adults each year, said Simons, the agency’s executive director.

“I think what we are about to bring to Seattle is the most amazing introduction to homelessness,” Simons said. “It’s putting homelessness right there.”

“Endurance” participant Sara Magyar credits Peace for the Streets with getting her off the street. Homeless since age 14 and hooked on drugs, Magyar learned of the agency during a chance meeting with some of the kids she once squatted with. Now 50, Magyar has been off drugs for five years, has an apartment and volunteers at Peace for the Streets, where she is known to many there as “Mama Sara.”

Magyar has come a long way since that day nearly two years ago when she stood on the downtown street corner, mentally counting off the names of friends and family who died. She believes the exhibit portrays “without pity or judgment” what was her reality for many years.

“I would like people to walk out of there with a drive to do something. I want people to walk out of there different,” Magyar said. “And when (people) walk by kids on the street to see them through different eyes.”

Yes, Virginia, there is a way for you to play Santa this holiday season. Here's how:

We asked local nonprofits to send us their wishes, and what began as a trickle turned into a torrent of requests — for diapers, wheelchairs, jackets, you name it. In the four years we've received holiday wish lists, we've never seen anything like it.

Perhaps it's the economy, but last year a few dozen groups heeded our call, while hundreds responded this year. We're printing their wishes in Northwest Life today, tomorrow and Tuesday so you, the readers, can help make those wishes come true.

Will you respond? You have in the past.

"We were thrilled last year," says Therese Platt of Providence ElderPlace, which serves the frail elderly in South Seattle. "One woman walked in with a huge assortment of art supplies — paints, paint brushes, oil pastels and canvases for our people to use in recreational therapy. They're low-income, so getting new art supplies is a real treat."

…

The test of a neighborhood's tolerance is gathered in a big, filthy pile in the middle of Brad Trenary's house.

Eight hypodermic needles, 32 empty drug baggies, 22 needle caps, 21 saline tubes and assorted tourniquets, alcohol swabs and lighters.

The debris — evidence of a city's heroin habit — was picked up last month by a group of garden-gloved neighbors at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill. The park includes the reservoir at 11th Avenue East and East Pine Street and Bobby Morris Playfield.

According to police officers, social-service providers, longtime neighbors and transient youth, the park has become an increasingly popular place to use heroin, despite ongoing renovation and the presence of soccer and softball games on afternoons and weekends.

In a neighborhood that regularly celebrates its eclectic heritage and countercultural diversity, the behavior has prompted some longtime residents to start asking themselves: Where do we draw the line?

"It crosses the line when public health is threatened, when people have to live with the debris," says Trenary, who has lived a block from the park for 10 years and became so fed up that he organized the cleanup. "How can you raise your kids when there are needles in the bushes, when there's vomit and feces in the park?"

In many ways, Trenary represents the quintessential Capitol Hill spirit. He is 50 years old, clean-cut and gay. He moved to Seattle 23 years ago from Montana with his partner and chose Capitol Hill because of its open-minded reputation.

"But we're maxing out on the outcasts of society," Trenary says. "For so long, it's been, 'Send them to Capitol Hill. They'll take them up there.' "

Residents say they have seen people overdosing in front of nearby businesses, leaving syringes in the park's playfields and public bathrooms, stabbing each other during drug deals, urinating and defecating in public, and fighting to use the portable toilets as shelter whenever it starts to rain.

Some of the transients who hang out at the park and the social-service providers who work with them say it's worse than that: At least two or three transient or homeless people die of heroin overdoses every year in the neighborhood.

"Me and my colleagues, we're trying to build self-esteem, make these kids feel good about themselves," said Elaine Simons, executive director of Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets, one of the few drop-in programs on the hill. "But we're failing. We're losing to heroin."

Valerie Kampe, 41, a mother of two who has lived on Capitol Hill since 1990, wonders how it got like this.

She remembers the neighborhood as "colorful, diverse, fun" and wants to raise her family in the city. But her son's brand-new bicycle was stolen off the front porch, and she found a syringe recently in her ivy.

"What I try to avoid doing is walk down the street and act suspicious of what I'm seeing," Kampe says. "I don't like to stare at them with an assumption and look for illegal activities. But without walking around looking for it, it's come to be in our face."

The problem became especially blatant during the summer, when the warm weather brought more people outside. The same tolerance — and acceptance — of subcultures that has made Capitol Hill Seattle's gay neighborhood also has made it a destination for groups of transients migrating along the West Coast.

The hill is also becoming a magnet as other neighborhoods crack down on their own troublesome populations. Pioneer Square recently banned sales of cheap, fortified alcoholic beverages. Heavy construction in the University District has made it more difficult for transient youth to loiter on The Ave.

"You see a lot more of the chronic drunks walking around Capitol Hill," says Mama Sara, 49, a former homeless woman who is now an unofficial caretaker for local castoffs and runaways.

Ask police officers about the problem, and they say personal heroin use isn't an enforcement priority. A 10-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department, who routinely patrols Cal Anderson Park and asked not to be named, says it takes at least three or four hours to deal with a person arrested for possession of heroin.

He has to drive suspects to jail, book them, inventory all their belongings, field test the drugs, send them to the crime lab and fill out paperwork.

He wonders what's the use. He has had "at least a few cases" where prosecutors or higher-ups declined to press charges against individuals who "were shooting up right in front us, individuals with the needle in the skin."

Capt. Fred Hill, the East Precinct commander, says 16 to 30 patrol officers work the entire precinct at any given hour, serving a population of about 88,000 in a high-activity area that also includes the Central District neighborhoods.

Given any number of other responsibilities, how realistic is it for a patrol officer to spend half a shift on a homeless kid caught shooting up in the park?

Sgt. Jeff Durden, with the East Precinct Community Police team, says, "It definitely goes beyond what the Police Department can do. There are a lot of social and economic issues here."

Trenary and his neighbors have e-mailed City Hall at least once a week, trying to get someone to pay attention. City Councilman Nick Licata did meet last week with residents and business owners to hear their complaints. Trenary called the meeting a step in the right direction.

But social-service providers and city officials repeat a common lament: There isn't enough money and support.

Street Links, known for its stalwart sandwich vans, stopped serving Broadway about a month ago. Manager Greg McCormack is vague about what happened, but says the effort is looking for a new sponsor. The Capitol Hill Youth Center, a drop-in facility, isn't around anymore. Neither is Stonewall, a recovery center.

Randy Nelson, a homeless-youth case manager with Street Outreach Services, says arranging drug treatment for people who want it sometimes takes months.

And then there is the lure of the drug itself.

Frankie, 29, is heavily pierced and tattooed. At the corner of Cal Anderson Park on a recent afternoon, he articulates what heroin has done to him.

He moved from Palm Springs, Calif., to Capitol Hill in 1995. Three nights in 1999 were all it took for him to become addicted to black-tar heroin. When he woke up after a weekend of heavy heroin use, he was already "dope sick" and craving more.

He struggled with the drug for months, losing his job, then his apartment. He tried getting treatment at a methadone clinic. It cost $361 a month for him and his girlfriend. He missed two payments, and the clinic put him on a 21-day detoxification program, and when that was over, it kicked him out.

"Opiate withdrawal, you'd rather be dead," he says. "It's the worst thing I've ever been through."

Now a self-admitted junkie, he says he sleeps in a tent in North Seattle. He scams, steals and sells dope. He mentions off-hand that there's a nasty bacterial infection — sores with "the consistency of custard" — going around the heroin community lately.

He smells. He hasn't showered. As he talks, his dog growls at another dog being walked by a middle-aged woman in sunglasses. The dogs tussle, and the woman yanks her dog back and quickly walks away.

"I can empathize with merchants and the parents whose kids are playing soccer," he says, nodding at an organized game nearby. "I put myself in their shoes, and I see some kids messing with drugs and needles, and my kid steps on a needle — I wouldn't want that.

"But most kids out here don't want to be part of society. They don't care what anybody thinks. That thought doesn't even cross their mind, that the things they might be doing are harmful. …

"And you know what? It's an easy way of life. We can get high all day. I have no responsibilities. I run my dog. I make some money."

A few moments later, Trenary walks briskly by. He nods his head at Frankie and another homeless man named Dan.

"I look at them now," Trenary had said a few days before. "I used to walk right by them, but I want them to know, 'You're being seen. You're not invisible anymore. It's not OK to shoot up in the park anymore.' "

Before Nicholas Helhowski became a well-liked young advocate for homeless youth in Seattle — before he was fatally beaten at a North Seattle bus stop in the spring of 2002 — he was a tough-guy street punk, quick with his fists and fast with his mouth.

Now, two young men, also street toughs, are suspected of killing Helhowski.

Wednesday night, Seattle homicide detectives arrested a 21-year-old transient and have forwarded charges to prosecutors against a 20-year-old man already serving time in state prison.

Prosecutors expect to file first-degree manslaughter charges against them next week.

"Nick was killed by the exact kinds of kids he had been hanging out with — and the same kinds of kids he was trying to help," Deputy King County Prosecutor Steve Fogg said.

Seattle District Court Judge Eileen Kato set bail for the 21-year-old suspect at $750,000 yesterday, saying she was concerned for the safety of the public if he were to be released from the King County Jail.

The news of the arrests came as welcome news, from the Capitol Hill advocacy group Helhowski helped run all the way to Mayor Greg Nickels' office.

Helhowski had changed from his Mohawk-wearing, street-kid persona, "Rooster," to an AmeriCorps volunteer and member of a city youth advisory committee. His funeral on Capitol Hill last year drew junkies, uniformed cops and Nickels to stand side by side in the street.

"I'm thrilled for closure," said Elaine Simons, director of Peace For The Streets By Kids From The Streets, the drop-in center on East Olive Way where Helhowski worked.

"But I look at it from all sides, that Nick Helhowski's family has been hurt so greatly, but now these two young men's families are going to be hurting."

Prosecutors say this time it wasn't DNA evidence or clever crime-lab science that solved the slaying. It was dogged, old-fashioned detective work.

Two Seattle detectives, Nat Gasperetti and Steve Kilburg, had been pursuing the case even as the trail seemed cold.

"Nat Gasperetti worked his tail off on this case," Fogg said yesterday. "This was a very difficult case to solve."

Nickels echoed Fogg's sentiment.

"The Seattle Police Department has, once again, done an outstanding job," Nickels said in a statement yesterday. "Perhaps the relentless work done by detectives Gasperetti and Kilburg will bring some closure to Nicholas' family.

"Nicholas was a wonderful man who made every moment of his short life count. He was a hero to many and a great example for us all."

Helhowski, 20, who had moved to Seattle from his small hometown of Hebron, Ind., only a year or so before, was on his way home to a transitional halfway house for homeless youth when he was attacked at the corner of North 85th Street and Wallingford Avenue North.

All police knew was that Helhowski had argued on the bus with two young men who got on the bus at Seattle Center with two or three teenage girls. They all got off at the stop, outside Bishop Blanchet High School, and the two men knocked Helhowski to the pavement. Helhowski's head hit the concrete and he died in the hospital three days later.

Detectives had been combing street-youth circles looking for leads, figuring someone would know who the two young attackers were.

Early last month, they found the girlfriend of the 21-year-old suspect, who told the investigators she watched the whole thing, authorities say.

Apparently, the 21-year-old man made a snide remark to Helhowski about some dried blood on Helhowski's shirt. Helhowski had cut himself while skateboarding several days before.

Helhowski told the man to mind his own business, and the pair spent the bus ride trading insults, authorities said.

After they all got off the bus, the two men repeatedly punched Helhowski, and he fell.

"Rooster never threw a punch," said Fogg.

Detectives learned that the suspects had lengthy criminal records and were known as street people.

Only a month after Helhowski's death, the 20-year-old man raped a young homeless woman in the middle of a downtown sidewalk, near the King County Jail.

Two police officers saw the crime and pulled the man off the woman. The police reported that the young man appeared stoned, and admitted using crack and heroin earlier.

He was convicted of second-degree rape and is serving an eight-year prison term at the state prison at Walla Walla, court records show.

He has a 10th-grade education and has prior convictions for theft, stolen-property trafficking and domestic assault, according to court records.

Detectives interviewed him in prison Tuesday.

The 21-year-old suspect, also a high-school dropout, has an even longer record.

Two months before Helhowski's death, the suspect was convicted of stealing a car from Capitol Hill, which he used to help a friend break into a gas station in Magnolia.

Last December, he led State Patrol troopers on a high-speed chase down Interstate 5 in a stolen van, which he crashed in Tacoma. He was jailed for three months.

He also has convictions including repeated car thefts, stalking, unlawful bus conduct, gun theft and marijuana possession.

Wednesday night, a team of police staked out an apartment in Tacoma where the 21-year-old had been staying. They arrested him as he tried to jump off a balcony in an effort to escape.

Prosecutors say they now have plenty of eyewitnesses and other evidence that assures them the two men are the killers.

"This is not going to be a whodunit," Fogg said.

But outside the 21-year-old suspect's bail hearing yesterday, one of several friends attending the proceedings implied that Helhowski was just as responsible for the altercation that killed him.

"It was a fight," said the young man, who didn't give his name. The suspect "had no idea that dude passed away," the friend said.

Given the men's criminal records, they would be facing roughly nine to 13 years in prison if convicted.

Before last fall, prosecutors would likely be filing second-degree murder charges against the men under the felony-murder rule.

A Supreme Court case last year invalidated the felony-murder law as it was then written. So manslaughter charges are the toughest that can be filed, because authorities can't prove the two men intended for Helhowski to die.

The state Legislature earlier this year restored the felony-murder law, but it doesn't apply to crimes that happened before it was restored.

Nevertheless, Simons, the homeless-center director, says she wonders what Helhowski himself would think about the case.

"He probably would have said, 'Let's put out a hand to help them,' " she said.

"Where he was in his life, in his transition, he still wanted to be that cocky boy that he was. … But I think he would have wanted to sit down and talk to these boys. Yes, they did something horrible, and yes, we lost a friend and colleague, but these boys' lives are going to be impacted, too."

Helhowski's father, Jim, at home in Hebron, Ind., said there were times he doubted police were doing everything they could to catch the killers, so he was thankful to detectives for sticking with it.

"I'm actually quite glad they caught the guys, though it's not going to bring my son back," he said.

But he agreed that it would be hard to predict what his son's reaction might be.

"I believe he would want justice done," Jim Helhowski said. "But I don't believe, with the direction he was headed, that he would be crying out for blood."

Before Nicholas Helhowski became a well-liked young advocate for homeless youth in Seattle — before he was fatally beaten at a North Seattle bus stop spring of 2002 — he was a tough-guy street-punk, quick with his fists and fast with his mouth.

Now, two young men, also street toughs, are suspected of killing Helhowski.

Yesterday, Seattle homicide detectives arrested a 21-year-old transient and have forwarded charges to prosecutors against a 20-year-old man who is already serving time in state prison.

Prosecutors expect to file first-degree manslaughter charges against them next week.

"Nick was killed by the exact kinds of kids he had been hanging out with — and the same kinds of kids he was trying to help," deputy King County prosecutor Steve Fogg said this morning.

The news of the arrests came as welcome news, from the Capitol Hill advocacy group Helhowski helped run all the way to Mayor Greg Nickels' office.

Helhowski had changed from his Mohawk-wearing, street-kid persona, "Rooster," to an Americorps volunteer and member of a city youth advisory committee. His funeral on Capitol Hill last year drew junkies, uniformed cops and Nickels to stand side by side in the street.

"I'm thrilled for closure," said Elaine Simons, the director of Peace For The Streets By Kids From The Streets, the drop-in center on East Olive Way where Helhowski worked.

"But I look at it from all sides, that Nick Helhowski's family has been hurt so greatly, but now these two young men's families are going to be hurting."

Prosecutors say this time it wasn't DNA evidence or clever crime-lab science that solved the slaying. It was dogged, old-fashioned detective work.

Two Seattle detectives, Nat Gasperetti and Steve Kilburg, had been pursuing the case even as the trail seemed cold.

"Nat Gasperetti worked his tail off on this case," Fogg said today. "This was a very difficult case to solve."

Helhowski, who had moved to Seattle from his small home town of Hebron, Ind., only a year or so before, was on his way home to a transitional halfway house for homeless youth when he was attacked at the corner of North 85th Street and Greenwood Avenue North.

All police knew was that Helhowski had argued on the bus with two young men who got on the bus at Seattle Center with two or three teenage girls. They all got off at the stop, outside Blanchet High School, and the two men knocked Helhowski to the pavement. Helhowski's head hit the concrete and he died in the hospital three days later.

Detectives had been combing street-youth circles looking for leads, figuring someone would know who the two young attackers were.

Early last month, they found the girlfriend of the 21-year-old suspect, who told the investigators she watched the whole thing, authorities say.

Apparently, the 21-year-old man made a snide remark to Helhowski about some dried blood on Helhowski's shirt. Helhowski had cut himself while skateboarding several days before.

Helhowski told the man to mind his own business, and the pair spent the bus ride trading insults, authorities said.

After they all got off the bus, the two men repeatedly punched Helhowski, and he fell.

"Rooster never threw a punch," said Fogg.

Detectives learned that the suspects had lengthy criminal records and were known as street people.

Only a month after Helhowski's death, the 20-year-old man raped a homeless woman near the King County Jail in downtown Seattle. He was convicted of second-degree rape and is currently serving time at the state prison at Walla Walla, court records show.

Detectives interviewed him in prison two days ago.

Last night, a team of police staked out an apartment in Tacoma where the 21-year-old had been staying. They arrested him as he tried to jump off a balcony in his effort to escape.

Prosecutors say they now have plenty of eyewitnesses and other evidence that assures them the two men are the killers.

"This is not going to be a whodunnit," Fogg said.

Given the men's criminal records, they would be facing roughly nine to 13 years in prison if convicted.

Before last fall, prosecutors would likely be filing second-degree murder charges against the men under the felony-murder rule.

A Supreme Court case last year that invalidated the felony-murder law as it was then written. So manslaughter charges are the toughest that can be filed because authorities can't prove the two men intended for Helhowski to die.

The state Legislature earlier this year restored the felony-murder law, but it doesn't apply to crimes that happened before it was restored.

Nevertheless, Simons, the homeless-center director, says she wonders what Helhowski himself would think about the case.

"He probably would have said, 'Let's put out a hand to help them,'" she said.

"Where he was in his life, in his transition, he still wanted to be that cocky boy that he was. . . .But I think he would have wanted to sit down and talk to these boys. Yes, they did something horrible, and yes, we lost a friend and colleague, but these boys' lives are going to be impacted, too."

Jaclyn Mellon, 18, fled an abusive father in Allentown, Pa., when she was 12. Homeless for much of the past six years, she recently put her baby up for adoption and is now trying to get off the streets.

"I go every place," Mellon said. "But I always come back to Seattle."

Mellon is part of a homeless youth population that tends to increase each summer in Seattle. An estimated 500 to 800 young people, ages 18 to 26, live on the streets.

Calling themselves "gutter punks," they often travel along the West Coast and land in Seattle for the same reasons others settle here: It's friendly, hip and full of young people.

Many have been homeless for several years. They often camp, spend the nights in shelters, live out of cars, or "squat" at the homes of friends. Sometimes unruly, and usually unwanted, the youths can be hard to miss, especially on Capitol Hill and in the University District.

Seattle police and street kids met yesterday afternoon on Capitol Hill for a "Donut Dialogue," an occasional forum that brings homeless youths together with police or local merchants to discuss problems and work on developing a better understanding of one another. It is the fourth such meeting since 2000.

"With summer coming, we decided it was important to bring it back because of the increased problems between homeless kids and police in the community," said Elaine Simons, executive director and co-founder of Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets.

Over pizza, doughnuts, sodas and other refreshments, some 30 police officers and homeless youths tried to find common ground.

Capitol Hill merchants recently have complained about trashed bathrooms, tips disappearing from restaurant tables, urination in doorways, graffiti and aggressive panhandling.

Youths counter that they are profiled and picked on by police, who fail to show them respect or courtesy.

Police say some homeless youths disobey the city's civility laws, which forbid sleeping on sidewalks, public urination and the like. Police also explained the futility of arguing with officers.

"On the street, there is no debate," said Officer Len Carver. "It's the officer's way or the way to King County Jail."

Some youths said that was unfair.

"No matter what we do, we're in violation of some kind of law," said Keith "Fungus" Tardy, 31.

Police told the youths that if they keep a low profile, they probably would not have many police encounters. Police and the youths also talked about preconceptions they have about each other.

"They're filthy," Officer Tim Greeley said of street youths. Asked to elaborate, he said many are "dirty and smelly."

The youths at Greeley's table liked his answer. They said it was honest.

Neither side made promises but just wanted to improve the present situation.

"The faces will change," said Jessica "Jecca" Classen. "We've got to make things better on the Hill."