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25 Years Of Ozone House

25 Years Of Ozone House image 25 Years Of Ozone House image
Parent Issue
Month
December
Year
1993
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held By
Agenda Publications
OCR Text

The year is 1970. A young man walks A toward 621 E. William. He wears jeans, a t-shirt, and an expression of anticipation. He reaches the door, opens it and walks up a long dark stairway that is lined with young people. He notices as he passes them that most are wearing beads, peace signs and long hair - like himself. Some are smoking cigarettes, exhaling clouds that hang around the few lights that exist in the hall. As he passes, the acid scent of aged sweat lets him know that some of these teenagers have not bathed or showered in weeks.

 

"Is this the Ozone House?" he asks the teenager on the lowest step. "Yep, upstairs." The young man walks to the top of the stairs, where a young woman greets him, and asks him how he is doing. Would he like anything to eat? Does he need a shower? How is he feeling? After days of feeling lost and confused, the boy starts telling this person about his journey. He finds himself talking freely, and feels like she is really listening to him. He enjoys the attention. He does not even notice that she is two years younger than himself, dressed in the very same fashion.

 

In the late '60s and early '70s, teenage flower children from all over the country colored the streets of Ann Arbor. The war was going on, drugs were happening. "Ann Arbor was a real drawing point," said Linda Feldt, a local alternative health care practitioner who has been involved with Ozone House since the early seventies.

 

Ozone House first materialized in 1969 as a crisis hot-line, drop-in counseling center, and crash pad for these young hippies. They would stop to check out the Ann Arbor scene on their way to California or Florida. Winter weather, hunger, and lack of money turned many counter-culture flights of fancy into problems of survival. "It was a desperate situation," recalls Loren Campbell, a retired attorney and judge, who worked with Ozone House at the time.

 

A coalition of community organizations planned Ozone House at Canterbury House, a popular coffee house started in the '60s by the Episcopal church youth ministry. Members of The Rainbow People's Party contributed their ideals of individual power and the importance of volunteer participation. The American Society of Friends provided a model for the new agency to run as a collective. These and other visions forged Ozone House as an agency dedicated to providing empathetic, non-judgmental counseling, and to treating teenagers as equal citizens.

 

Ozone House was not the only product of community coffee house conversations about the transformation of society. Other collectively run community services shared the same building on 621 E. William Street, including the Free People's Clinic on the first floor, offering free basic health care. On the second floor with Ozone House, Creative Arts Workshop offered classes such as massage, and Drug Help answered questions from callers who were having bad acid trips, or interested in knowing how to make hash brownies.

 

At first, some members of the community accused Ozone House of undermining parental authority, illegally "harboring" teenagers, and encouraging youth to run away. "Most of my generation could not understand why teens were running," said Campbell. In 1970, a special city council task force investigated Ozone House, encouraged by a notorious conservative, Larry Clark. After visiting Ozone House and talking to teens there, Clark, who had loudly opposed the project, reported to City Council that Ozone House was the city's best hope to handle the runaway problem, and deserved city funds. He cited the trust teens had for Ozone House as the key to its success. "That generation didn't trust just anyone," agreed Campbell, whose testimony at the time secured the initial funding that would ensure Ozone House's existence.

 

In its first three unsteady years Ozone House moved from 621 E. William to 302 E. Liberty, above Herb David Guitar Studio (near 5th Street), then to the old Fisher Cadillac building at 502 E. Washington. "We considered the old Cadillac Building home sweet home," said Campbell, remembering the difficulties of short term leases at the other locations. At Washington Street, Ozone House volunteers hired their first part-time staff person, remembered by Campbell as a "big husky hippie with lots of gold chains and beads." Finally at a stable location, volunteers began serving the adult homeless population as well as teens, and became strong advocates for youth rights and social justice, trying to pass a parental responsibility ordinance in Ann Arbor and backing an initiative to rewrite the state juvenile code.

 

In its first decade, Ozone House, a self-consciously alternative agency, practiced a kind of isolationism from established institutions in the area. Ozone House had a particularly antagonistic relationship with the police, and did not communicate much with the state social service institutions.

 

Circumstances that had created the Ozone House of the '60s no longer existed in the early '80s. "Starting in the mid-'70s, more kids were not running away at all but were thrown away, so we were seeing more and more kids with very serious problems," Feldt explained. Ozone House began to work with Catholic Social Services and the juvenile court system. Trainings changed to include how to fill out reports to Children's Protective Services. In short, Ozone House began to connect with the mainstream social service system in Washtenaw County. According to Campbell, this led to a turnaround in public opinion and police opinion. Yet Ozone House workers were still suspicious of "anyone who looked like a parent" untll the early '80s, explained Feldt. At this time, Ozone House was established at its current location on 608 N. Main Street, where a growing staff and volunteer base shaped the current programs.

 

The Ozone House of today looks just like the residential houses that surround it, with the exception of an uprooted sign, leaning against the front porch. Inside, teens find the same kindness and understanding that they did 24 years ago.

 

Ozone House now focuses on teenagers exclusively, sending adults to the relatively new Ann Arbor Shelters. Last year, over a thousand young people called Ozone House to talk about arguments at home, fights with friends, relationships gone awry, and all too often, abusive living situations or suicidal depressions. Teenagers call from pay phones or show up on the doorstep with nowhere to go because of second-generation homelessness, poverty, abuse, and even being shut out of their home by family. The seventy-some volunteers and eleven staff members still listen empathetically, without passing judgement.

 

Just as in 1969, Ozone House offers shelter for teenagers, but now in licensed foster care or through the Youth Housing Coalition, a group whose members donate space In their homes so that a homeless teenager can have a warm, comfortable, and safe place to stay.

 

A rise in the teenage homelessness population led to the opening of Miller House in 1984. Ozone House opened this six-bed facility to provide free rent and board for teenagers while they learned independent living skills, finished school, and saved money. A few years later, Ozone House designed and implemented a non-residential program to give rent assistance, skills training, and counseling support for homeless teens who are not staving at Miller House. Federal Budget cuts resulted in the closing of Miller House in mid-October of this year. Ozone House staff are exploring other funding sources in an attempt to increase non-residential support for homeless teens, said current program coordinator, Paul Wood.

 

At a time of fewer resources, the client population continues to need more help. According to Wood, Ozone House sees more severe abuse, mental illness, and poverty than ever before. Presentations about Ozone House services for police, more thorough volunteer training and screening, and a stronger working relationship with social service professionals are a few of the most recent changes that address the increased problems. New services that Ozone House provides for teenagers include a support group for gay teenagers, a business internship program for homeless youth, and community education programs on topics like depression, substance abuse, and family communication.

 

Through the changes, the collective structure has remained intact. Workers still make decisions by consensus, helping hundreds of volunteers each year learn that they can make a difference, and that their ideas matter. "Knowing that you have access to the decision making process at that level is very empowering," said Feldt. As a result, Ozone House creates "a special atmosphere of equality that makes for a unique social service experience for those who have the time and energy" explained Harvey Pillersdorf, also a former volunteer. Clients at Ozone House do not see "bosses" handing down decisions, but a relationship of peers working on an equal footing. According to Feldt, Ozone House helps people become empowered, then sets them out in the world to create social change. This chain reaction was a key part of the original mission of Ozone House.

 

"We basically said that, within ten years, the world would be so transformed that it will no longer be necessary to have Ozone House," said Feldt, who proudly claims the title of the youngest worker to counsel at Ozone House when she started working there at the age of 14.

 

"You are your own barrier," Feldt explains to new workers, "don't be afraid to question why things are being done the way they are." Indeed, many at Ozone House agree that the collective structure and active input of volunteers is the reason why Ozone House is able to adapt so well to new circumstances. Ozone House trains nearly 100 volunteers each year. Each volunteer has access to all meetings and input to all decisions affecting the direction and future of Ozone House. In this last year alone, volunteers have counseled hundreds of teenagers, designed an internal newsletter, helped to write grants, created a computer data base for resources, took important roles in deciding how to deal with the loss of a Federal Transitional Living Grant, and helped plan important fundraisers such as the selling of a 25th Anniversary Youth Art Calendar, now available in local downtown stores.

 

Now a relatively secure institution, Ozone House has managed to preserve a service philosophy and volunteer philosophy that continue to serve the community well.

 

Mark Bangela is a staff member and former volunteer at Ozone House. As the Community Resource and Outreach Coordinator, he works to involve the community with Ozone House programs. If you have any questions about Ozone House, or would like to volunteer, call 662-2222.

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