Once the center of a ‘ghetto,’ a Santa Ana playground revamp hopes to rebuild community connections
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Roberto Alcaras has a fondness for the place he’s lived his entire life, but even he admits that the Bishop Manor townhome community in Santa Ana was not safe.
Former Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters reportedly once called it the worst neighborhood in the city. Violence, gangs and drug dealing were commonplace.
“This was the ghetto,” said Alcaras, who turned 38 on Friday and has lived in four different residences in the 164-unit townhome community over the decades. “This was bad.”
He said the community has become racially divided over the years. Latino Americans live on the north end and Cambodian Americans on the south end of the property, a mix of renters and homeowners.
The playground in the middle of Bishop Manor could have served as a unifying element. Instead, the dilapidated space served more as a litterbox for neighborhood cats.
“There were broken swings [and] hazards,” said Alcaras, who lives in the community with three of his seven children. “[There were] broken glass bottles. I don’t know if I can use big words other than ‘trash.’”
Alcaras became the president of the Bishop Manor homeowners association a couple of years ago, but the community also needed outside help.
Enter the Orange County chapter of Community Associations Institute, a nonprofit organization that advocates for HOAs and other community associations.
CAI broke ground on a Bishop Manor playground reconstruction project on Thursday. CAIOC President-elect Mike Perlof said that on Saturday, many of the nonprofit’s members would join in a big work party at the property.
It’s all part of a new CAIOC program launched in January that’s called CAID.
“Our sole purpose is to identify communities that need help with whatever,” said Perlof, a Santa Ana resident who serves as the committee chair. “It can be anything. This is our first pilot project. I think this one really pulled on the heartstrings of our board and our membership, not only because of the playground.”
Kidworks, a play-based learning nonprofit based in Santa Ana, was using the Bishop Manor clubhouse as a meeting place until roof damage forced them to relocate years ago. Perlof said that Scott Kutner, a CAI member and philanthropist who runs the HOA Community Reinvestment Fund of Orange County, wanted to help out.
“His organization had done a lot of legwork identifying Bishop Manor in specific, but just communities in need in general throughout Orange County,” Perlof said. “It’s like the perfect fit.”
Due to insurance issues, CAID was limited in how much it could help with the clubhouse, so it focused its attention on the playground.
Conor Ross is a construction manager volunteering his time to lead the entire build. He lives just a few miles away from Bishop Manor, which makes the project a bit more personal for him.
“This playground being right in the middle [of the complex], this is the chance for the cultures to mix,” he said. “It’s like oil and water, if it weren’t for the kids. Having this super-cool, beautiful playground makes that possible. I can’t think of a much better use of our time than helping out here.”
Donations from a long list of project partners are making it possible, with BEHR Paint and Precision Painting donating a deep blue for a pair of mural walls. Ross’ office manager, who operates her own Sheryl Bale Photography business, is designing murals on each wall.
Gone will be graffiti and what Ross called a “death post,” a short post that was formerly the bottom of a slide that could seriously injure or kill a child that fell on top of it.
Perlof, a licensed general contractor, said he was so excited to start the process that he couldn’t sleep on Wednesday night.
“They’re just dealing with keeping the homes habitable,” he said of the Bishop Manor homeowners association. “The playground and clubhouse are on the back burner, and they have been for it seems like a long time ... [The kids] all have their own agendas for the playground, which is adorable. Mostly it’s been a lot of, ‘Fix our soccer field, can we get grass?’
Turf will be installed on roughly half of the playground, where the children indeed already play soccer, using the gates on each side as goals. Wood chips will comprise the rest of the area.
Perlof said he anticipates having a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the playground later this month. He credited CAIOC executive director Denise Kennedy for supporting the project.
“This is totally out of the box for CAI,” he said. “It’s something that’s new and different, and she’s leading the charge.”
Perlof said that CAID hopes to work on a significant project each year, uplifting other neighborhoods around the county.
Meanwhile, Antis Roofing is working on repairing the Bishop Manor clubhouse roof. Alcaras said the goal is for Kidworks to return by mid-August.
That, combined with the new playground, could transform Bishop Manor. Alcaras, a successful youth soccer coach in the area, will soon have a safe place for his youngest child, a 6-year-old daughter, to play.
“I’m grateful that there’s people out there willing to help the community like this,” he said. “I was joking around that it’s not Bishop Manor, it’s residential Bishop Manor now … I consider this residential. I consider this a place for families to live.”
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