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Ozone House Morale Sagging

Ozone House Morale Sagging image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
July
Year
1973
Copyright
Copyright Protected
Rights Held By
Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Lack Of Space Blamed

Ozone House Morale Sagging

By Owen Eshenroder
( News Staff Reporter)

‘There’s always a reason why we can’t find the right place. Either it has a code violation or it’s too expensive or else the landlord refuses to rent it to us.’

 

Despite a disastrous fire and cramped facilities, despite continuing resentment and a shortage of funds, Ozone House is still alive and well and helping runaways in Ann Arbor.

The fire, caused by arson, occurred last December when Ozone House was located in the Fisher Cadillac Building at 502 E. Washington St. The fire forced the present lack of space in four small rooms above Mark’s Coffeehouse at 603 E. William St.

Those rooms are shared with Drug Help Inc. and Center Project, and according to Ozone workers, the situation is not like “the good old days” on Washington Street.

“Our biggest problem is how really low our morale has been since the fire,” said counselor Glen Fischer, 22. “We’ve been looking for a more adequate place all along, but we've run into some brick walls.”

Larry Clark, who operates an alarm systems business in the city and is a member of Ozone’s Board of Directors, noted, “There’s always a reason why we can’t find the right place. Either it has code violations or it’s too expensive or else the landlord refuses to rent it to us.”

Although Ozone House has a staff of about 40 volunteers and seven fulltime workers and has been established—but not Establishment—for more than three years now, many persons remain convinced in their own minds that runaways are harbored there and a variety of illegal and immoral activities go on inside.

For reasons such as these, Ozone House has never won full acceptance from the entire community, despite the fact that it may help several hundred runaway youths with their problems each year and has been praised for its service by a mayor’s blue ribbon committee.

“It’s mostly due to the public not understanding what we actually do here,” said Fischer. “Some people still think we’re a bunch of dope-crazed hippies who can’t speak in complete sentences. But people will believe what they want to believe.”

Added Clark, “The think I’ve always gotten from the straight community is that Ozone House is run by t h e Rainbow People’s Party. Of course that's not true."

Lorne Campbell, an Ann Arbor attorney and an Ozone board member, claimed the agency is sometimes the victim of "pure hypocrisy.”

“You hear the old line about it being a great program but some place else, not here,” he said. “This is what we’ve run into with some landlords in trying to find a new facility.”

Campbell feels that in order to further reduce public animosity in certain quarters against Ozone House, those persons actively involved in it must strive to establish communications links with the likes of church groups and service clubs.

"If we can sit down and explain the program to people, we can usually overcome their fears and suspicions about it,” he said. “People like Larry and I can act as a bridge between the white collar community, such as my own Ki-wanis Club, and the people who do the work here. But we have to go to them.”

“We’re willing to go to any group at any time to discuss what we’re doing,” stated Ozone counselor Joey Schwartz, 25.

She said one sign of improved public recognition of Ozone House’s function is that it has received referrals from private citizens, church groups and even the mayor’s office.

The accusation that runaways are harbored at Ozone House plagues the agency. “We don’t put anyone up for the night here and we never have,” stressed Fischer. “The fact is we do harbor kids but not here. We’ll let them spend the night either at a foster home or at an Ozone worker’s place. We do it because we believe it’s right.”

Fischer adamantly disagrees with the state’s law against harboring and gives the following example to illustrate his point:

“I’m working and a 14-year-old girl comes in around midnight after having run away from home earlier that day. She wants help, so what should I do with her? Call the cops and let them take her home or to the juvenile Retention center? Turn her back out onto the streets to maybe be exploited? Or find a place for her to spend the night where she own’t be afraid?

“There’s always a fear of the police in a situation like that, and there’s a fear of detention and a fear of going home to the problem from which she ran in the first place. That problem may turn out to be really trivial, but at the time It can seem like a major crisis to her.”

Concluded Fischer, “The proper thing for me to do is find her a safe place for the night, but the harboring law tells me that I can’t legally do that.”

He admitted that by going ahead and arranging one-night shelter for runaways, he has technically violated the law on numerous occasions. But Fischer believes that in so doing he has been morally if not legally right.

“Runaway kids need some time to think things over and come to their own decisions,” Schwartz explained. “The last thing they want is to be driven right back home as a criminal by the police . . . Then they’ll probably just run again when they get the chance.”

Since Ozone House has acquired the reputation of being an agency which advocates children’s rights, it has succeeded in attracting runaways in need of counseling and a place to think free from outside pressures.

During the first three months of this year, 58 runaways ranging age from 11 to 17 were counseled there.

Fischer said that older, more traditional types of social service agencies which deal with runaways now feel threatened by the success of Ozone House.

“Kids know they can trust us; they know we’re on their side,” he said. “But when kids are finally given equal rights and aren’t treated like pieces of property any more, there won’t be a need for a place like Ozone House.

“Hopefully, we’re working to put ourselves out of existence, put ourselves out of existence.”