Some of you may know that Lauren Hulten & Jaime Shirley started a roller derby league 3 yrs ago. You probably didn’t know that all league members are required to put in 15 hours of community service every season and that we give 10% of our games profits to charity. Last year we put in over 500 man hours of community service and gave over $5,000 dollars to charity.
Please help us keep our one and only skate rink in San Jose!!
Malice in Wonderland?
Affordable housing vs. roller derby
Posted: 02/18/2010 06:26:16 PM PST
Updated: 02/18/2010 10:18:57 PM PST
When Liz Ruiz pulls on her torn fishnet stockings, elbow pads and a helmet for next month's roller derby match, "Malice in Wonderland," she will become Liz Palooza. A blocker for the Silicon Valley Roller Girls team, Palooza is known for skating backward very fast. The skill comes in handy for bumping opposing skaters on their fannies.
But starting last week, her main goal is to knock another opponent off track: an affordable housing development that would eliminate San Jose's last indoor roller skating rink and the team's home track.
"If we don't have a home rink, we won't be able to do it," Ruiz said recently at a tense public meeting in South San Jose packed with more than 100 roller derby players, neighbors and recreational skaters.
Most of the time, opposition to low-income housing usually dwells on what a neighborhood would receive — increased traffic, decreased property values, lowlifes and so on. In this case, the problem is what the area would lose — the San Jose Skate roller rink, which remains beloved even though it has seen better days since opening in 1976.
"It does make this project different for us," said Kathy Robinson, director of housing development at Charities Housing. "Here you have two public interests: housing and skating. My own kids used to skate there!"
'Still affordable'
Robinson's nonprofit hopes to build 150 studio apartments for the
working poor, most of them individuals, couples and single parents who hold low-wage jobs. But first the organization must persuade City Hall to rezone the property from commercial to residential. The rink sits on a two-acre property owned by the Health Trust, a San Jose-based nonprofit seeking to sell it.
Although Robinson and her staff tried to address the audience's worst fears — for example, how Charities Housing screens out felons, addicts, child molesters and other unwanted renters — some in the crowd simply didn't buy it.
"I don't care what your statistics say," a woman shouted from her seat, "we don't want it!" And a man standing near the door added, "I guarantee you, it'll bring drugs, alcohol and gangs with it."
But by the time the meeting ended, the not-in-my-backyard sentiments had subsided, and a new opposition strategy quietly emerged: Local residents would team up with the Silicon Valley Roller Girls to save San Jose Skate as a recreational and social amenity the neighborhood can't afford to lose.
"You don't see a lot of family activity here," said Deborah Torrens, president of the Blossom Valley Neighborhood Association. "We want something that draws people to our community." A few days later at the South San Jose rink, San Jose Skate general manager Mike van Leeuwen eagerly ran through some not great but not bad numbers recorded on his cell phone: Since last July, 12,000 people have skated there; the rink hosted 150 birthday parties and donated $10,000 to local parent-teacher associations.
In most ways, San Jose Skate is a typical roller rink — admission $7, including skate rental — with strobe lights, piped-in pop music, video games, hot dogs and popcorn.
"It's still affordable compared to bowling, museums and even miniature golf," said Cindi D'Souza, a local stay-at-home mom who had brought her four young children and two of their friends to the rink. D'Souza said she paid only $45 for four hours of skating for all of them. "It would be a shame to see this place go away."
'Save Our Rink'
Several teenagers on winter break also said the rink offers safe fun.
"It's cheap, and I like the music here," said Javier Velez, 13. "There's no violence."
Van Leeuwen acknowledges he could draw more skaters, but it would take about $500,000 to resurface the parking lot and refurbish the rink's carpets and lights. He won't spend that much without a long-term lease, but the Health Trust only wants to sell the building. Buying the building with the Silicon Valley Roller Girls is a possibility, van Leeuwen said, but it's only a fancy notion right now.
The Roller Girls are actually a nonprofit organization, not a professional team, explained Ruiz, the team's vice president. Members donate hundreds of hours to raise money for the rink, local charities and schools.
Meanwhile, Charities Housing will rely on its record to convince City Hall and neighbors that affordable housing would give the community a bigger boost than the rink.
The nonprofit, which grew out of Catholic Charities and is now independent, has built about 850 affordable units in 16 developments spread across the county.
But why that site? Why not pick one without a roller rink or, for that matter, a bowling alley or the valley's last pomegranate orchard?
"There are no vacant parcels left," Robinson said, exaggerating only a little. "It takes the right location, the right price and a willing seller to make it work."
Robinson said low-income renters need the same neighborhood amenities as middle-class homeowners.
"They need schools, grocery stores and shopping nearby, too," Robinson said. She expects that some residents already living or working in the Blossom Valley neighborhood would qualify for a studio.
It takes about five years to build affordable housing in Silicon Valley, and this project might take more. Just before leaving the rink, Velez signed on to a "Save-Our-Rink" mailing list and said he would attend the next public hearing.
The boy declared with determination, "They can't close this place."
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