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Ozone House

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The organization began in 1969 in Ann Arbor in response to the growing number of runaway youth migrating to "hip" towns following the Summer of Love of 1967. During this time, Ann Arbor was among the top 20 cities in the U.S. with a high influx of runaways. Many came to experience the counter culture of the 70's but would later find themselves stranded. The University of Michigan, local businesses, organizations, and community residents united in support of Ozone House in order to handle the increasing number of street-dwelling and panhandling runaways. Among these organizations were the White and Black Panthers, the Rainbow People's Party, and the Liberal Quakers. From these groups, Ozone House adopted a collectivist system to make its organization decisions.

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The organization began in 1969 in Ann Arbor in response to the growing number of runaway youth migrating to "hip" towns following the Summer of Love of 1967. During this time, Ann Arbor was among the top 20 cities in the U.S. with a high influx of runaways. Many came to experience the counter culture of the 70's but would later find themselves stranded. The University of Michigan, local businesses, organizations, and community residents united in support of Ozone House in order to handle the increasing number of street-dwelling and panhandling runaways. Among these organizations were the White and Black Panthers, the Rainbow People's Party, and the Liberal Quakers. From these groups, Ozone House adopted a collectivist system to make its organization decisions. Ozone House was part of four main agencies in the Community Center Coordinating Council (referred to as C4) that provided services to youth who did not qualify for human resources services at the time or who did not feel comfortable engaging those established human resource organizations. Originally housed together with these other services, Ozone House relocated several times since its founding. However, unlike the other C4 agencies, Ozone House is the only one that remains autonomous and active to this day. While initially providing drug-counseling to runaway youth, the organization expanded its services in the early 1970's to provide safe, temporary housing ("crash pads") for youth, many of whom found themselves in Ann Arbor with no means of returning home. Staff at Ozone House recognized the need to establish trust between its clients and uniquely adopted the same "hip" appearance and attitude of its largely hippie clients, providing physical spaces that were "non-institutional" and casual. As the runaway crisis drew larger legal attention, issues arose concerning underage runaways and their parents. One of its earliest approaches was a three-tiered system for housing youth summarized as crashing, fostering, and moling; Each targeted a specific situation and age of the youth. Crashing involved youths over age 17 who did not need parental consent and could be housed by listed individuals or families in the area. Fostering was used in conjunction with Catholic Social Services of Michigan in order to circumvent state-licensing issues and arranged youth to live in state-licensed foster homes. The system utilized parental consent and asked for a voluntary small financial contribution to assist with the child's living expenses. The situation was unique because it allowed the youth to initiate hir services, rather than the parents or the state. The final strategy was moling which recognized situations in which "a young person cannot get parental permission for Foster Care, the young person refuses to contact his/her parents, is an institutional runaway, or in other special circumstances.". This third system allowed an underage youth to be sheltered regardless of the legal policies at the time. Counselors would ask a series of questions to determine if moling was the last (and most appropriate) option and if the actions could be justified pending legal action. Moling was recognized as a risky alternative requiring caution and staff were adamant that they be used solely for crisis situations rather than casual escapes from a youth's personal or familial problems. Staff viewed the third option as maintaining solidarity with the radical political changes in youth advocacy. While helping to lead national advocacy to expand youth legal rights, Ozone House became the second agency of its kid to receive federal funding to address the growing needs of youth. This lead to expanded services, such a free counseling, family intervention, and individual youth advocacy.