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Mhm. Despite the ceremonial death of the hippie last summer and the evolution of the erstwhile Freeman san Francisco's Haight Ashbury District continues to be a mecca for thousands of teenagers who flocked to it. Many of these flower Children seeking the glow of some all too rare

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warm San Francisco night have run into grave health social. If they are under 18 years old and without visible parental supervision, they are classed as runaways by the police as runaways, they are liable to be arrested and placed in one of the centers operated by the

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California Youth Authority. Later they are forced to deal with the concomitant stigma and misery that a police record implies. Currently, the honest approach to the problem of runaways is provided by an organization located on the fringes of the hate called huckleberries for runaways in a building

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at number one broderick Street Huckleberries for runaways was brought into being by several churches and the SAn Francisco Foundation in response to members of the Haight Ashbury community reverend bank Banks. What do you see as the most pressing problem of the runaway? I think it how

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to get the how to get the most out of the situation in terms of some kind of a new agreement back home where the dissatisfaction is, and it seems like the crisis of the situation and some of the resources in the neutral ground that we offer

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here. A lot of runaways find they have a lot of good creative leverage to use in this situation and families find that they have leverage to Well, what's the goal then of huckleberries for runaways? How would you Huckleberry? The goal here would always be to to

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try to trust and work with the decision making power of the teenagers who come to us rarely once in a while. Somebody shows he hasn't got decision making power. That's namely somebody who's mentally ill or eight years old. But for the most part we trust and

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go with their decision making power and they make very good decisions. They work on their situation. How many runaways so far have been serviced by? We've had around we opened June 67, we've had about 600 clients and about 1200 or more parents have come in. We've

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had good solid contact with them to you mean the parents are brought into the program somehow. Could you describe how they are? Well, there's 22 ways. One is we deal of course with the client of those 600 runaways. That means we're dealing with 600 parents there.

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But in addition to that, about 80 or 90 parents call in or come into this place every month looking for the child bewildered, confused, needing reassurance, needing interpretation, sometimes needing correction. Frank, worried about what you're doing is lousy and and in the crisis they seem to

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make good contact here and we have good good report with him. You say that current approaches toward dealing with the runaway have failed to What do you attribute this failure? The police through no fault of their own have been designated as some social cure all for

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this ill And they just the laws and the whole structure just work against it. That's all. So that's why we're here and it isn't an effective way to do it the way that most cities do it. That is sheer police pick up and incarceration. Right, okay,

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mm hmm. Mhm. Terry. What what brought you to san Francisco adventure and finding new places? The side of all the people down here, just come down and see what it was like the first time I've been here. So I think it's pretty good. Do do all

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of you feel pretty much the same way? Yes. How do you feel about it? Yeah, it's it's a pretty groovy place and I just got sick of the place that I was living in. Do you think that this is like some kind of a good change?

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Well, not really. I mean in a way, but not much. How long have you been connected with with huckleberries? It's been about three days, two days. How about how about you? About a week? About a week? You're kind of an old timer. What what do you

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think of the place? What do you think of huckleberries? It's a nice place. I'd like to live here for quite awhile. Can't I know that. Why can't you? Well this isn't this isn't a place for people to live? You know, place for runaways to come try

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to get their problems straightened out. Do you feel you're getting some help here? Yeah. There's conversations and start to get your problems worked out. Can you can anybody talk about what what their plans might be? What do you think you'll do after you leave Huckleberry? You

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see, leaving? Oh I don't know. I'm gonna try to get a job I guess. Yeah. Other than that, I really don't know. How about you? I'm not really sure. I'm not sure. Well, thanks very much for talking to us. Good luck. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. The problem

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of runaways is a problem that reaches into every corner of our society. No one. Certainly no parent can feel secure huckleberries is providing some help. But more important perhaps is the belief that the problem and the solution to the problem lie within the hands of parents.

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This is Tony baton for city beat in san Francisco