Verbal testimonies given at the Urban Future Lab’s Mission San Jose and Quintana Road Pilot Project Workshop, part of “Retropolitan: The New American City,” the International Downtown Association’s 64th Annual Conference, co-hosted by Centro San Antonio and held October 26, 2018 in San Antonio.
Theresa Ybanez
Theresa is President of the Mission San Jose Neighborhood Association. A native of San Antonio, she graduated from Brackenridge High School and received her BA at Trinity University. Theresa moved to the Mission San Jose Neighborhood Association in 2003 but the Missions and the Southside have always been a part of her life.
“Great ideas, there’s a bunch, but action there’s very little. And through Southside First, Andrew Anguiano, and Dr. Antonio Petrov and his team, the action is starting to happen. We in Mission San Jose are very blessed that we have a beautiful World Heritage Site right smack dab in the middle of our community. But even with that beautiful cultural center and our Mission Marquee and being part of the World Heritage site, we still have a lot of work that we need to do. Our community has been, like Quintana, a community that was ignored for many, many years. Ignored in small business, ignored for housing, ignored for education, and what we’re seeing now because of the action by Southside First and the Urban Future Lab. There is an incredible amount of data they are collecting and using a totally different perspective. I’m learning so much as a leader and as a property owner about how we need to use that data in a totally different way, in a new way with our leadership that make policy in our city. So, I was noticing in these maps, you see colorful spots and it seems like Quintana has a lot of action going on and ours is very centralized, it’s centered around our Mission. I was noticing some of the data they collected at our neighborhood’s National Night Out event and noticing that many of our families do not get their services in the neighborhood where they live. They drive outside of the neighborhood to get the services they need, their groceries, for cleaning, for the laundromat, for other small business services. And it’s very interesting to see that data and how that affects my neighborhood in trying to be a sustainable neighborhood. One of the things I’m hoping will come out is the grassroots data that’s being given to us and shared with us, that all of my neighbors understand and see the impact it can have on their neighborhood. I’m hoping, like Erica had mentioned, that it creates an energy amongst the residents and in that one square mile area of our neighborhood. I can’t wait to see what else is going to be happening and get some of this energy to start creating more activity in our neighborhood and learning about the neighborhood as well.”
Erica Benavides
Erica is a resident and property owner in the Quintana Road neighborhood.
“You can see exactly what the building looked like, what the floors looked like, it was just horrible. But we have our own business, we’re self-employed and like any entrepreneur we eventually want to have a storefront. We came in here eager, excited, and ready for it. In nine months, you’ve seen the transformation we were able to make. But as small business owners, we had to bootstrap the entire project, so about nine months into it, there was still so much more to do and we didn’t have the money. Two years ago we closed the doors and went to work. When we were operating, we were open 8-5 Monday through Friday and on Saturday. This place became a hub for children to come after school to learn to play the guitar, children as young as 5 and as old as 18 used to come here with their parents. We had senior citizens come in from the community taking lessons. This place also was a hub for about 100 local musicians, they came here to get professional development and personal development. They learned how to be entrepreneurs and they had to look at themselves as a business. There were a lot of beautiful things that happened in this building where we were here. Unfortunately, because we didn’t have, as business owners and property owners, we didn’t have the capital to put into it because we had to halt everything we were doing, and it really saddened us. We knew we were somewhat of an anchor business. There are other businesses in this area, but we really wanted to be the kind of business that gave back to the community and opened its doors to give people a way into arts and culture. It’s something we do kind of lack here on the Southside. So, we tried and we tried and we didn’t fail, we saw it as a growth opportunity but we weren’t able to finish. We hope that with the Urban Future Lab, UTSA, Southside First, the Quintana Neighborhood Association and all of our neighbors that we will hopefully come and continue this project. That the Quintana neighborhood will continue to see the kind of revitalization that it deserves because this community deserves it, the business owners deserve it, and I can say on behalf of my husband and I, and some other business owners and property owners in this room, now that we found a little energy we’re willing to do whatever it takes to see this beautiful community come back to life. Because you see the bones and thank you UTSA for acknowledging those bones and putting them on paper, putting them into these wonderful models. Now it’s time for the community to come together to give back to this neighborhood like it deserves.”